>> what about you? what are the pride -- primary and sees -- entities? >> if you are in baltimore orioles fan, you are looking for multiple allegiances edge xiv to lodge on to in the last few years. the first thing to keep in mind on the issue of religion is how you need the united states is compared to a country -- to countries that are also part of the advanced industrial world. the we have a country in which 60% of the population tells us religion is very important in our lives. and an additional 25% who say it is somewhat important. you are talking about 85% of americans who take their religion pretty seriously. you have a country in which nine

out of 10 people identify with one religious tradition or another. again, i would challenge you to look at the statistics on any other country, including our neighbors to the north, to see if you find anything like that. that is point number one. we are, indeed, a religious country within the advanced industrial world. secondly, we are also a very diverse country from the standpoint of religion. i am flanked by two immigration and emigration is always good. -- immigration is always good. the person that is given the high degree of religiosity and high degree of diversity, why do we see the conflict that we do not see elsewhere? and in the publisher poured

about religious tensions and restrictions around the world, indeed, the u.s. is not by any means normal in the sense of religious tension. why was that the case? this takes a long conversation. we can just put a marker are here that we can return to. i think it has to do with diversity. i think those -- the fact that we have remained highly religious while europe has become very secular, and at the same time have not had a conflict. the founders of the faith have a practical problem, and that is, the kind of diversity within protestantism that they have confronted. for the sake of pragmatism they have settled on what is the first amendment in the constitution.

first of all, no established church. that was the to avoid -- typical european model. the second part of that is a strong commitment to free exercise of religion, expression of freedom in religion in the public sphere. in that way, they went against what you're became the counter model to a stop this, and that is, the model and body in the french revolution. we also see it elsewhere in places like turkey or mexico. the revolution in mexico was very anti clerical. my sense in looking at our data is that the american public, the religious groups across the spectrum, have really internalize the norms in body than the free exercise. very much supportive of

separation, and on the other hand, very much supportive, by and large, of religious expression in common life. and somehow that has meant that they became even more connected to the country and its legal norms precise the because it allowed the public space where all religious traditions, including their own, could play themselves out freely without the government putting its finger, as it were, on the scale. if i could give you some examples of empirical data on this, i have got to give you some data. take a look at our surveys. we do them every year, but they are particularly interesting around presidential election years. consistently seven out of 10 americans say that they want a

president with strong religious beliefs. even after several cycles of religion saturated campaigns, many say that is exactly what they want or they want even more. then you ask some questions like endorsing candidates from the pulpit. whether they are priests, imams, rabbis -- there is a strong aversion to that. the balance of opinion shifts to the other direction. when you break it down to those who are most religious and most -- and those who are most secular, they are right in line. there is strong consensus on that score. it is interesting to think about religious diversity and the need to accommodate its legally.

we see before as being more committed to the democratic norms precise because of the wave that has been hamilton -- been handled, diversity. >> i have been thinking a lot about the need years of the past century, the '40's, 50's, 60's. newe's no question that the diversity has made it hard to have the kind of cohesion we had in those days. i have been looking at white seemed so easy. basically, african-americans were outside the body politic in those days, and there were no immigrants. in 1970, only 5% of the population is foreign-born -- was foreign-born. we're back to the 12% to 15% range, about like it was in the ellis island days. we have -- we had gotten to a

low point in our history of foreign born immigrants. that made kalisha a lot easier. -- that made cohesion a lot easier. we are as high -- at as high a point as we were during the oleson island days. a couple thousand were coming in every year after that and now we are at about 1.5 million every year. we are hearing a lot of foreign languages that we did not hear in the '40's through the '60s. in particular, spanish. and there is a whole marketing sector in america devoted to marketing in languages and in ethnic products and you name it -- tens of millions of dollars that go to marketing to the sectors.

there is spanish tv and spanish radio. there were always german newspapers, but there is a presence to it now. people live in new york and people who live in l.a. take this for granted. i live in the heartland and if you live in a town that did not have any immigrants 30 years ago and now is one-third immigrant because of the meat packing plant in town. or if you live somewhere in georgia where there were no immigrants and now, there is a plant or factory and there are immigrants. people's heads are exploding. we think is backwards, but is happening. even though it is an old fashioned problem, in a way,

many light years before we are worried about white-minority consciousness. you know, we are still feeling that there is a white majority, but they feel threatened by the change. on the other hand, there is a set of numbers that have to be laid out on the table. if you look at how well today's immigrants are integrating, they are integrating very well. everyone has the concept that my grandmother learned english overnight and now it is pressed choose -- press, two for spanish and that they are not in the account -- they are not integrating, that is not true. if you look at today compared to the ellis island days, how quickly people learn english, back in the day in the first

five years, about half have learned some level of proficient usable in english. today, in the first five years two-thirds are using and have learned some official level of english. in every area that you look out, whether it is language, education, a level of your job, whether you are above or below the poverty line, immigrants do much better than their parents in many ways catching up to the native born. if you look at first generation latinos, about 40% have high school degrees. by the time they are -- at the second generation, their kids, 85 percent of them had high school educations. -- 85% of them have high school educations. i think people do not know

enough and one of our jobs ought to be getting that information to this frightened majority. but the other thing that i think complicates our interesting discussion here, picking up on what is the description in the panel, and of folk -- also what jennifer said, ultimately, the things that seem to divide us are what unites us. this has been true to the history of u.s. immigration. the immigrant group, the immigrant organizations, the church, the parish, the voluntary organizations in your ethnic neighborhood become your vehicle into the mainstream. that has been true since the old neighborhoods in boston and new york and chicago, and it is true again today. in the old neighborhood, you came to a place where all of your people from your home town and her cousins and would never have moved from chicago and new

york. there were all kinds of schools and saturday schools and you name it. you took part and they help you to function and survive and then get to work and meet with native-born people. they also became your learning the ways in the u.s. you can think of -- a backward -- if you were from a backward country in eastern europe, you probably were not politically active. you probably did not think you could make a difference. now you are here and you can get involved in your tevamie all ordaz are small parish. -- tammany hall ward your small

cuparish. we are seeing not played out again today. people are getting involved. they go to demonstrations and the next thing you know they are registering to vote for people go to their hometown associations to send money back to their village. before you know it, it is playing in your own hometown association and you -- i just looked at chicago and you can belong to four organizations that have nothing to do with mexican politics. the most interesting of these analogies is the way you start your own ethnic bases in the neighborhood -- ethnic business in the neighborhood. people can buy things were shot for home, and then you are edging over into a more

mainstream market. i want to end on the notion of the-that has been the notion that -- the -- of the hyphen that has been the notion. teddy roosevelt raged against it. he did not want americans to choose and my loyal to this country or to america? hold on to those organizations, can help youn bridge between the two it seems like we're putting -- between the two.

>> it seems like we are putting things about together. this is a very broad question. it is motivated by a bumper sticker. and it says "unity through diversity." is that just a tired slogan left over from the days of hyper self-conscious diversity talk? or is there something to it? >> i gave you a very broad picture in terms of religion and public life in this country. that is not to say has been a smooth curve. there have been some pretty big on along the way. and it has to do with entrance into the u.s. as a country, as a political system, again, through immigration. pushing the tombolo out from the standpoint of the majority,

established community -- pushing the envelope from the standpoint of the majority, establish community, again, i will take the perspective of irish catholics. again, because of my family's migration from europe. this was profoundly unsettling to the mainstream astonishment. there were, indeed, not only tensions and conflicts, but violence in places like philadelphia. the original campus of michael modern -- of my alma mater was torture the ground. the precipitating reason had to do with bible reading in the public schools and whether catholic kids would be allowed to read their version rather than the king james version. this was such an affront to the

astonishment that there were riots in the street. the national guard had to call out -- be called out to put down the rebellion. it has been a steady revolution, but a revolution nonetheless. obviously, post 65 immigration, jennifer mentioned. the latin american immigrants are predominantly christian. the main demographic in bread -- impact they're having is putting more members into the roman catholic church. unlike the native born who are 2 to 1, protestants coming into this country are 2 to 1 -- unlike the native born who are 2 to one protestant, those coming

into this country are 2 to 1 catholic. a large percentage of them look at the percentage of foreign- born muslim and hindus and buddhists. the latest wave of migration is producing much greater diversity pushing on not only through the christian and jewish -- that is another story we could talk about. but it is now buddhist and hindu and so forth. i think there is a continuing challenge, and again, it seems to me how the government and we, as a society respond to the diversity and choose to accommodate its that will determine whether these will serve to shore up the broader

tendency toward diversity. >> i think these comments compared to the first panel are very interesting. could it be that these immigrants are willing to make for a cohesive country where the white people in kansas and the white people in l.a., fourth of all, would fragment into two different cultures. it is an interesting question. univision -- unity through diversity is a nice slogan, but the problem is that it leaves out the to devoted other. -- the two together.

the american model has always had the one thing that we all bought into that i think was not about cultural conformity as it is defined in europe. it was not about been german and in french. there was a lot of difference in culture. but there was a set of ideas that people bought into that made america what it is. unity through diversity leaves out a set of ideas, what ever they are. it is hard to describe, but if we had to go into separate rooms and described them, we would come up with something similar. it is about our democratic values and opportunity and having a certain amount of equality and tolerance and freedom. that is not the same as tolerating patchwork and unity through diversity.

>> i think this is an opportunity to talk about some of my work on marriages end multigenerational opportunity. how diversity is changing opportunity. intermarriage has risen dramatically over the past 50 years. about one in 13 american marriages are interracial marriages, which to me, was quite surprising. even if i live in southern california and i see a number of interracial relationships. this is the united states on hold. if you -- on the whole. if you look at 2008, one in seven marriages was interracial in 2008. my co-author and i looked at states and we brooks goes down

by metropolitan areas. we found that states -- and we broke the those down by metropolitan areas. we found that the states that were the most perverse had the highest rates of -- the were the most diverse had the highest rates of interracial marriage. on the one hand, you might think that the increase of groups could lead to the erection of boundaries around groups. but what we are finding is that when you have a large presence of at least three different groups, you find more of an interracial marriage and more multiracial reporting. the increased diversity is actually not leading to fragmentation. it seems to be leading to more of a reduction of social distance between groups. with that said, it is fascinating with the numbers i gave about latinos.

about how of these marriages -- about half of these marriages are latino interracial marriages. among asians, this is actually starling to me -- i went back and founded in my notes. the 72% of u.s. and foreign agents are in an interracial relationship. it gets to the issue of diversity. it gets to the issue of our we fragment the as a society -- fragmenting as a society? what we see is that the gaps are closing, especially for asians and latinos. and among those, u.s.-born asians and latinos.

one of the other findings that is very remarkable in my work is this whole idea of black exceptional as on. even though we find these patterns of bridging the social distance, the one group for room that this distance is not bridged as closely war as quickly is between african- americans and whites. >> let me ask you to speak about the politics of this and the discourse surrounding it. on the one hand, -- all of you are painting a picture of more unity than division. but the politics and the discourse seem to belie all of that. there's a phrase that sharia law will become a lot in the united states, or that white people

experience more and -- more discrimination than blacks, or that immigration is tearing up this country. but this seems to belie all of that. our politics are becoming increasingly more fragmented. i wonder if you can speak about the decoupling between what we see going on at the ground level and the way we talk about this. jennifer, what do we start with you? >> this is puzzling to me and i do not have an answer, so i would be curious to hear what the panel has to say, and to hear from all of you. i do see this incredible divorcing of what someone in the first panel talked about, political ideas and our ideas, and the politicization of those

ideas. we have been talking about what americans support for undocumented immigrants. can you talk about that? >> americans are kind of all over the place when it comes to their opinions about immigration. if you look at the polls taken last summer, a majority favor changing the 14th amendments of the children who are born in the united states could not become automatic citizens. is a small majority to feel that way, but a majority. then a large majority would favor creating an path to legalism for those who are here illegally. it is a paradoxical situation. >> i agree. i think it's incredibly paradoxical. one of the things that we are finding in our work is, if you do give these unauthorized

migrants without his citizenship, their children have much better educational outcomes. it is not that these unauthorized immigrants do not want to naturalized. they often are unable to. but it affects not only them, but it affects their children. i will kick the ball over to louise who could probably answer better than i could. >> it has been a contentious issue. and unlike other issues like gay marriage, we still see very little movement. it is divided about 5050 -- 50/50. it is interesting to see the way it is breaking down because it is not solidifying the differences. at one point in our history it was the protestant/catholic,

very weak divisions. if you get the data -- if you look at the data and analyze it, you see that those not run along denominational lines. they run through them. a highly divisive issue like that, in an interesting sort of way, has generated a kind of ecumenical resolved. take conservative catholics and evangelicals. by the way, when you add evangelicals and catholics, you have more than 50% of the country. these are not insignificant groups in terms of their size. these are groups that were at each other's throats in the past. if you look at conservative catholics and evangelicals, they have made common cause on the topic of abortion.

that one issue has allowed them to break down a lot of boundaries between white evangelicals and conservative roman catholics in a way that i have personally found stunning. you can add the orthodox jews to that mix. reconfigured the way people lined up on that. even a highly divisive topic like that, on the religious side it has also generated some unity among some conservative-oriented groups. their religiousof tradition. >> i spend most of my time in washington trying to make immigration reform houten, which we know i've been doing a really good job. it is stalemated issue.

groupse been going to and speaking and try to get a sense of where the public is. is a complete divide in ways that you might not expect. i actually have an explanation of it. when you go out and you sit down with a focus group and you ask them what they think about immigrants year, a focus group of 12 people around the table. i have done them all over the country with college educated and not, women and men, white and otherwise. they are complaining about it and if you let them spend the whole two hours talking about whether they like it or not, they are ambivalent. yes but emergency rooms, i guess, but the school, etc.

if you ask them what is your solution -- and i am talking about republican women in nashville. they will get very pragmatic and it will be out a solution of president obama horicon hersman -- president obama for congress moreno-gutierres has arrived at. they will talk about that for 10 minutes and they will say, that is not very practical. at about the 45 minute point, and i swear you could set your watch by this, someone will say,

i cannot believe i'm going to say this, but we have to let them become legal. we have to figure out a way for them to jump through some moves and become legal. he of the public out there with very mixed views. but when you ask them to be practical, it gets to a pragmatic solution. we are stuck in these two camps. when i started this it was republicans and democrats both to work for or against reform. now is republicans against and democrats for reform. what is the difference? why can't we have the connection

who wanted toblic' waive pragmatics solution even though they are very troubled -- who want to get to a pragmatic solution even though they are very troubled and those in decisionmaking positions. on a lot of different issues you have the public who is always ambivalent about issues. therefore motherhood, -- they are for motherhood, but they are not. we generally want a nation of immigrants, but we are troubled by the illegal -- illegality. then politicians give them to forces that are either/or. when you are given an either/or

choice, you will take that choice. you will take one or the other. even though you had the more mixed view. the problem is not so much the polarization of the public. it is a public that is ambivalent, confused, but once pragmatic solutions and the leadership is offering starkly polarized choices. that is what is going on with immigration. it is hard for those people in the focus groups to make themselves heard, saying that we want it practical solution that works out on a lot of different dimensions. their choices are given to them as black and white. >> i want to turn to the underlying assumption of both panels, which is that some

degree of cohesion is desirable. and we have been talking about ways that political groups might come together. at what are the specific things that have the potential to bring it together? is it in military conscription? is it the pledge of allegiance? what is it that will get them to a sense of unity? >> i don't know if i had the answer. if i had the answer, i would be running for president or something. but one thing is, if you make cohesion your goal, it is almost like making the mechanics of the goal, as opposed to the substance. people who say i want to get rich do not get rich as often as people who say, i have a good idea for a product, or for a company. and people who say i want to be happy are not as happy as people

who say, i want to accomplish something and love the people around me. the people who are putting cohesion there are putting the cart before the course, so to speak. -- before the horse, so to speak. kalisha might be good or bad. i do not have the answer to what those values might be. but there once was in much better sense of what our purpose and shared values were. cohesion as the goal -- maybe you could say i am for military service, and i am for national displaced, etc. -- national

displays, etc. >> i like that and if you follow up on that and think about something that is larger than yourself and working toward that. and do not bring people together -- and doing that well bring people together and working toward something else, that is the goal. then you start to forget about the things that are different between you and among you and thinking about working toward the goal. some of my friends are martial artists and when they walk into a dojo, they do not care what they do or whether you are foreign born. they are working toward a skill. that is how they are judged for measure. neighborhood associations or

community organizations, when you are working toward the betterment of something else, leaving those characteristics behind and working toward something that is beyond yourself. >> let me just say that i think you research center we take a strict non-advocacy perspective. the technique to come on now for social cohesion. -- technically, i am not for social cohesion. we nearly -- we just report on the facts. but the same parts of religious communities in society are open to a credibility of all groups, that seems to be the winner. the muslim community without question that since 9/11 has had a difficult time. since last year was quite difficult.

we were surprised when we polled the extent of which they have to absorb american values. and the rates of citizenship and language acquisition and so forth were really far advanced in terms of their incorporation into the united states. again, to get to the specifics, probably getting into the survey results, it is the religion side, that their religion is respected and from a legal framework treated like every other religion in this country. >> why don't we take a moment to open it up to you and take some comments? i will ask you to be as brief and concise as you can. we have two microphones and they

will come to you. >> you said the c word, conscription. it opens up this idea -- we want draftees less than we wanted the gays in the military, women. but it does open up this idea. having had that experience, it is an experience that is unequally shared by immigrants and minorities with an officer corps that is still somewhat white, but only the whites that did not go to law school. >> i think it is interesting that you bring up the military because it is an institution

that when we talk about cohesion, there are a number of countries in the world that use the military as the school of the nation. if you want people to come together, feel a sense of unity about what it means to be corian or israeli -- korean or is really, and i do not use those on accident, then you know what is to be from those countries. " i understand that the military does not want draftees -- >> i understand that the military does not want draftee's anymore. maybe the point is, not many people would want to do it. poor people might want to do it,

but everybody else is in a hurry to get to law school. maybe the fear is that if we propose it, nobody would want to do it. which does tell us something about cohesion and sacrifice. how many people would take a hero to go build bridges afford teach in schools -- build bridges or teach in schools? but a lot of college -- >> a lot of college graduates would have to do some length about now because their options are limited, but it would be really good. >> have any have you done any work in the arts in terms of social cohesion? i would also like to suggest that instead of cohesion, we could be talking about understanding. i interviewed 90 artistic directors of culturally -- 19 artistic directors of culturally substantiaspecific entities.

they are becoming integrated into the mainstream and creating an understanding that is going beyond the specific committees. some are working in the basement of the kennedy center. i would like to hear more about the role of the arts because i think it is interesting. >> that does make my point about the ethnic vehicle of the -- into the mainstream, but it is a lovely example that i had not thought of. >> you cannot be a teenager in silicon valley unless you know something about b aliwood for corian using --

korean music. >> i have seen some studies that people who integrate tend to be people who are more and entrepreneurial and take risks and chances. that is presumably one of the reasons that the u.s. has been as entrepreneurial as a house. in recent years -- has its highs. in recent years -- for a long time, illegal immigration was accepted by many businessmen and people who needed gardeners' and things like that. it has suddenly become much less acceptable, but has left us with a situation where we have a large number of highly productive immigrants, often who are exploited because of their lack of legal status. how can we solve that in some kind of cohesive way?

and the economic and downs of that. -- ups and downs of that. but you get into an important point about the selectivity of immigrants. the immigrants who come here from different countries, in some ways, they are the most entrepreneurial because they are willing to leave their countries of origin and make a new life for themselves somewhere new and be the former. and immigrants have a high level of entrepreneurship. if you look at certain image -- certain asian immigrant groups, there entrepreneurialism is extraordinarily high. but that is partly due to the fact that they're close out of jobs that they are qualified for because they do not speak english well, do not understand the cultural norms of native-

born culture. but then you have also talked about what we are to do with this group of unauthorized migrants coming year for opportunity. who would know your lawn? who would be serving you in restaurants? who would be cleaning your hotel room? >> who would be harvesting crops? >> exactly. in california, a drug buy them all the time. who would be doing this work? -- by drive by them all the time. who would be doing this work? these undocumented workers are doing labor, but for some reason we do not feel like they belong. and it seems like bringing together what had been said earlier about focus groups, i

think that many are concerned about the children, especially those who have been raised here most of their lives. it seems to be the only humane way to go about it, and for them to explore their opportunities and not exploited in the process. >> immigrants are drawn here for economic opportunity. you come for jobs. you do not get welfare. americans are more and more educated. in 1960, half of the american men in the work force were high- school dropouts wanting to do on skilled physical work. today, 5 to 10 -- 5% to 10% are high-school dropouts.

we see how much is market-driven because in the downturn, the flow from mexico has been cut by half. we still need some farmers and it's still need some people in the kitchen, but not as many. it is very market-driven. the problem is, the public does not understand that. they think, if you pay my cousin of $1 more, he will do it. a, that is not true, and become -- the problem is that the american public does not get the economic drivers. and even when they understand the economic peace, the cultural fears conflict with the economic peace. it is difficult to have a

rational conversation. and the scary sound bites and the polarized choices tend to intervene before we get to the rational conversation. >> that is precisely the attitude we pull most americans. a high percentage say, yes, if you work hard, you will get far in this society. they really hold onto that can do american attitude. and i should point out, unlike muslim communities in europe, the muslim unity in this country tends to be highly educated. and there are some immigrant communities, and there are some

of the highest levels of education are held by hindu americans. >> we have another question on your right. >> i want to bring in the added component of gender and the role that it plays with immigrant population and integration. i found a little bit of research in my school in terms irani in -- iranians. the women tend to integrate better and faster than the men. there is a train of thought that maybe it was the acceptance

of feminism here, or maybe the way they were treated in iran. we talk about the much useless society and how patriarchal it is. what is that relationship to the united states? do we see integration into society in the same way that we do the family itself? >> that is an excellent question. i think more people need to pay attention to gender differences in immigration. i thought of a couple of examples. one of the things is that ... often, highly educated men had a hard time integrating into the united states because they experience a severe status drop. if you are working as a professor in your country of origin, you come to the u.s. and you are not able to get an

equivalent job and you have to open up a small business in a low-income neighborhood to make a living. there is a status inconsistency. for women, the status drop is often not as severe. that is one thing. the second thing is, the patterns of intermarriage. they're very gendered. not so much among latinos, but especially among asians. that has implications for integration. the female is twice as likely to intermarry than the mail. it seems that females, for reasons of the pre-migration status, and also their reception have an easier time integrating. >> there is some evidence that, especially among the children of

low skilled immigrants, women are doing better than men. part of it is because women and men are being raised according to a very traditional gender norms of child rearing. often in big cities that means the boys are allowed to roam free after-school and women have to come home and help out in the household. in doing so, they are developing a set of skills that are transferable to the labour force and school. they stay out of trouble more. you see them getting better grades and, getting better jobs and more likely to go to school. >> the question was for iranians in particular. >> i think that is probably consistent with what you mentioned. >> you need to keep in mind that there is a wide variety among

american muslims. when i say two-thirds are foreign born, they really come from all over the world. there is no one country that accounts for 8% of american muslims. if you look get europe, their migration has tended to be more westernized. they're they're relieved -- the least religious muslim group in history. cuban-americans who tended to be white, middle-class, fairly well educated, and among latinos, the most secular rise of the groups. >> will be taking the last question for the panel. >> i used to teach in kuwait and one of my students came over to florida this spring break and a

troubled in florida and they traveled in europe. he sent me a facebook message and said that he was surprised. he faced no discrimination. there is no racism in florida, not like europe. there is a sense in which we like to talk about these things, and as americans we get ourselves wrapped in bunches over some of this stuff. it is not as bad as it seems. to the point about loyalty, i really think this is where we need to be focused. those questions of what the steve kordell use our that we hold, they transcend things. if you look at abortion, you have two very deeply held values of defending the rights of the person that cannot defend themselves, which is something that is -- that lives deep in

the american psyche. we jump to the defense of someone that we see cannot defend themselves. and you have two sides trying to define what that would be. that is where we get to our cohesion. how you find these values that transcend everything, that bring us together. >> it is a good question, but a hard one. >> that is right. we have defined americanness as an adherence to a creek. was not present in the creed is adherence to a particular religion.

the reason many feel they can be wholly american is because they do not have to give up their minority faith in order to accept the american creed. i think it is a very significant thing. folks in europe have a lot tougher time coming to terms with that. what does it mean to be german, were to be french? who -- or to be french? many of these things that are not part of the american creed have been his shortly -- historically part of theirs, and i think that makes it more challenging for them than for us. >> this was something you said early on about the difference between this panel and the panel before. we're not talking about immigrants or religion, but people who are loyal to one

group and how to think about transferring that loyalty to a different or larger group. it is probably about some sort of individualism on the broader level. it is relative to my community, but it is individualism. people just do not feel they are part of something that may be in earlier generations they felt they are part of -- were part of. in some ways, it is an easier problem, and it is about the creed when you're talking about individuals. what do they come together around? >> jennifer, do you want the last word? >> i really appreciated your story about your student who came to florida and said that he does not experienced racism.

tomas and i were talking about when we talk about these issues with our students, one of the things that gives me hope is things that i might see where that to moss might see as huge barriers for the students, they are so blase about these things. they're almost passed it. i'm not sure if it is because they are in california where there is an enormous amount of racial and ethnic diversity and immigration is not something new or different, but it does give me hope that this kind of anecdote that you mentioned is not new, and is not original to this particular person. for the younger generation, the millennial is, i think we are calling them, it is not as big a deal that -- theas it is for our

generation. >> if you talk to the religious leaders, their main concern is their flock is very patriotic and committed to the nine states or a committee. they see as a social norm that is this is in them from other religious institutions. on that note, we will have to close. i want to thank our panel and all of you for waiting in. [applause] >> thank you, everyone. justice o'connor is not feeling very well, so she has asked me to sort of perform a wrap up, which i will do. i am from arizona state university. let me say the following central question. it was really one intended to stimulate discourse and

interaction and to sort of get a glimpse from leading scholars and authors and thinkers about the complexity of a question potentially as strange as, can the united states remain united? as i indicated at the outset, there are probably many reasons that that is an objective that merits as much attention as we can bring to it as possible, particularly because of the fact, at least in thinking about what some of the panelists had to say today, what i was hearing in this discussion was this sort of the economy -- a sort of a dichotomy, this notion of the ideals of united states. individualism, individualized liberty, freedom of religion, all of the things that make up who we are driving us to the point that when people either a right here from somewhere else or once here, are able to find

themselves freely expressive, they're able to do whatever they want to do. and that is the way that the system is designed. given that, you have this stress. this stress of how can you be cohesive when everyone is free on an individual basis to be what they want to do what they would like to do, and at the same time, how do find ways to connect them? so it is the case that these stresses, i think, are particularly acute at the moment for reasons like we heard from our panelists. i think in the first panel, michael talks specifically about technology and this ability to create one's own world. if you can create your own world, then you live in a place for your own world as a credible thing. chances are you're going to be highly motivated to do that. this notion that bill talked about of scale, where within your ability to create your own world, you could identify and create your own identity. move to a place where that

identity could be maximized, and then live your life with in that space, that place, but his place. why would you not want to do that? jim talked about this notion of what i saw as partisanship convergence and culture, and the notion of cultural partisanship. or partisanship is changing and evolving. it is this notion of the extension of partisanship. again, why not? here we have this manifestation of this a very stark care dilemma and the american design is such that it drives us to situate our differences. but the unifying factor is the mechanism under which we are empowered to be able to do that. i thought randall kennedy's talk, where he put down two very important concepts that were related to each other, the notion of an attractive social

cohesion and what he called decent social cohesion, and he talked about the notion of who cares about the ceiling. we have to worry about the floor. if you have no access to decent conceptualization of connectivity to anyone else, you have no purchase of a tory mechanism along the way. then we have left those 40 two million people behind, and i thought that he was outlining something that one needs to keep in mind because one of the consequences of intense individualism is 32% of those people being children who are living and being raised in the particular environment for which i have no control. it is a flaw, if you will, in a design that has not yet been resolved. this panel, i think, interestingly, and i think appropriately sort of outlined some of the very significant, almost research, questions.

it is this notion of this dilemma i mentioned between the ideals of america and the implementation of that americanism and this notion of when i was listening to you all, what i was hearing was this notion of realtime forces. i thought this panel could have been called realtime, high-speed social change. this notion of speed. social change is probably never occurred at the speed with which it occurs in the united states in the early 21st century. there cannot have been a time in history where social change has occurred the way that it occurs year. from jennifer, we heard over and over from different dynamic direction, this notion of the fluidity of social constructs, this notion of being dynamically driven by american values. so what the americans will look like in the future, we're hearing about intermarriage and

interconnection and enter linkages and so forth, there's probably no way to predict that other than a group of people driven by these american values the through highly fluid, dynamically-driven social construct. the social contracts have changed, are changing, and are likely to change. we heard about new immigration waves. the interesting than, i remember when something and the presidential campaign in 2008, someone said -- they went out and told everyone and someone said, who will not vote for barack obama because his father is of african descent? 80 cents that i do not care. 20% said i care. -- 80% said i do not care. so that means, whoever said i care, that means they were racist. there were actually making a decision that they were unwilling to vote for someone because of the racial heritage of the father. i said to myself, well, great. that means we have now 80% your

seemingly not racist and 20% who are seemingly racist. seemingly racist. i said to myself, that is fantastic, until you run the numbers. in a country of 300 million people, that is a lot of people. it is this notion of the numbers, large numbers. we sometimes have not realized that, yes, there has been waves of immigration that have come and gone. there has seldom a been a time in any country's history where you have 1.5 million immigrants showing up from all over the world all at once in a single year and then 1.5 million the next year and the next year. these are very large numbers. so this notion of dealing with all of this, this new immigration wave, and in this new technological world where immigrants and others can subgroup and group and link and communicate in ways that have not been possible in the past. these are important questions

about the issues of social cohesion or lack thereof. and then this notion of -- i think you are saying this, there was this notion of the cohesion that we actually are ready have is a function of the fact that in the united states, you want to be the hindu, flutist, catholic, atheist, a jew, muslim, whatever it is, be my guest. be my guest, because there's nothing holding back from any of those directions. there is this notion that the cohesiveness there's actually around the idea of religious freedom. the one of the things i wanted to put on the table, gregory, for you in the center and for others involved and for the fellows and those participating in this, this is a really important set of questions. it is really a poor and set of issues. it is one of the old styles of approach, -- it is really a important set of issues. the old styles of approach will not work. i am not picking on the stanford

and a sociology department. we did away with our sociology department, of course. [laughter] we have evolved a school for the human evolution and social change and a school for family and social dynamics. so we have other structures. it is that old approaches are not likely to work. all paradigms' are not likely to work. you need to look at this from the perspective of all of these things that i think that our panelists were able to put on the table. for those of you or were able to ask questions, thank you. i thought the questions were dead and about people living in the right direction. for those of you better interested in this topic, the center will be continuing and will continue to advance, both in the form of public discourse as well as written materials, academic work, and so forth. so thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [applause]

>> the senate was scheduled to take a weeklong break for the july 4 holiday, but majority leader harry reid decided to have senators return tomorrow to continue negotiations on the debt and to visit. on the floor, military operations in libya, starting at 2:00 p.m. eastern with a vote on moving the resolution forward at 5:00 p.m. and the house is out for the july 4 holiday. lawmakers return -- [no audio]

>> today, on c-span, the dollar lawmen and vincent harding, martin luther king jr.'s speech writer, it talked about nonviolence. they spoke to more than 10,000 people at the university of arkansas, discussing osama bin laden's that, at the nuremberg trials, the execution of the dollar hussain, and the death penalty. -- the execution of saddam hussein, and the death penalty. >> the number of people who killed through violence, over 200 million. but the problem is not solved. i think that kind of action, and others of exploitation, also i think -- [unintelligible] sometimes as i hear.

>> watch this discussion this evening at 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. tonight on c-span, a look back at president nixon's foreign policy. members of his administration and the president's son-in-law discuss topics including communism in china, invading north vietnam, and the 1967 war in the middle east. >> the discussion then in the newspapers were nixon's secret plan for peace. what was it? of course, he never talked about it. that was rockefeller pushing nixon to say something, to expose what his plan was. he did not think nixon had a plan. i happen to be in the library waiting for trisha to change her clothes, we were going out. you can sign up your hard day of campaigning. he liked to listen to checkoffs d. i thought, should ask him or

not? well, i am almost a member of the family. mr. nixon, what is your plan? >> lisagor to go to peking, moscow, and that is how we're going to bring about peace in vietnam and the world. >> watch this discussion from the u.s. navy memorial in washington, d.c., tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. c-span has launched a new easy to navigate web site for politics and the 2012 presidential race, but the latest cease and events from the campaign trail, biography information on the candidates, twitter feeds, and facebook updates, and links to c-span media partners in the early primary and caucus states visit us at the website.

but afternoon, and welcome. my name is mark, i am broadcast journalist with the associated press. the 100 for president and the national press club. we're all the world's leading professional organization for journalist and we're committed to our profession's future through our programming, even such as this, while also working to foster a free press worldwide. for more permission about the national press club, i invite you all to look at our website. and to donate to programs offered to the public for our national journalism library. you can check that out on the web site as well. on behalf of our members worldwide, i would like to

welcome our speaker. if you hear applause, we would like to know that members of the general public are attending today, so does not necessarily evidence of a lack of journalistic objectivity. [laughter] i would also like to welcome our audience on c-span and public radio. we have weekly podcast available for free down -- download on itunes and you can also follow us on twitter. after our guests, we'll have q&a and we will ask as many questions as time permits. i would ask the guests to stand up briefly as your name is announced first, the vice chairman of our and pc board of governors, a senior riegle -- writer with congressional quarterly. kendeigh vice president and assistant to the president of the uso. an editor with the washington

post. the ceo of the disabled american veterans organization, the co-founder of the veterans like memorial foundation and is a guest speaker today. it reporter for usa today and also a past npc president. the president and ceo of people to people international, and the granddaughter of dwight eisenhower and guest of mr. denise. -- mr. sinise. she is also a fellow kansan by extension as well. or speaking -- speaker committee chair is doing a fabulous job today. we will skip over our guest speaker for a moment. we have a news contributor from the daily beast. the research director for cnn. producer/director of "the

lieutenant vanzandt." -- the lieutenant dan band. -- "lieutenant dan band: for the common good" film. praetorius u.s. tv reviewer. washington bureau chief with the houston chronicle and hearst newspapers, also a past npc president. now a round of applause. [applause] our guest speaker today is widely recognized for his humanitarian work on behalf of u.s. military troops and he is an award winning actor. he now plays a detective, the start of the -- star of a cbs series. "csi new york." he has been in a number of collaborations with tom hanks. of " apollo 13" and "the greek mile." it is worth noting that he played a president in a television movie "truman," that particular president as a matter of fact.

the former governor, george wallace as well. it was his academy award winning role in the movie "forest gump " " that has endeared him to many fans. he plays lieutenant dan and is still known to many as lt. dan. he is here to announce the launch of a national organization, the foundation to support military service members, veterans, offers responders and their families. and it is a culmination of years of support for u.s. service members and their families. he has served as a host for national memorial day concert on the washington mall, and has made more than 40 uso tours and over 150 appearances to entertain our troops at military bases worldwide from iraq to afghanistan to

guantanamo bay. most often, he travels with his group, which you have heard about. the cookies on the table are a tribute to that. they are the focus of a feature-length documentary that chronicles the band travels to entertain the troops. they have a website. they are doing a launch very soon where people can watch that. kfar the proceeds will benefit the gary sinise foundation. while dismissing the speculation that he is running for political office -- [laughter] but we might follow up on that today. our guest has been an outspoken critic of bureaucracy and red tape that often delays and prevents service members and veterans from getting care and benefits. he has said the nation is not doing enough to help disabled veterans and u.s. troops wounded in iraq and afghanistan. he has called on the government to -- and the private sector to spend more on victims of posttraumatic stress disorder

and get them some help. he is a star who moonlights as a soldier's advocate. our speaker has questioned his own industry at times while producing films our -- producing films that portray our troops in a negative light. as one-sided, depressing, artist or made, according to a chicago times report. in a film about soldiers on the front lines in iraq and among his many awards and honors, he is a recipient of the presidential award of freedom, one of only two actors to get that and 110 people in our nation's history. he also received the medal of honor bob hope excellence in entertainment award and the harry s. truman good neighbor award. as co-founder of operation international children, he has provided school supplies to hundreds of thousands of children were u.s. troops are deployed. here today to discuss his plans to help veterans and fallen

soldiers as well as their families, please welcome mr. gary sinise. [applause] >> thank you. i can cut my speech short out. -- short now. [laughter] i would like to thank the members of the national press club to -- for the invitation to speak today. it is a great honor to return. having first have the opportunity as the national spokesperson for the disabled veterans for life memorial foundation and again in support of the documentary "brothers at war." when i think of the people who have stood at the spot, our national heroes, great figures

of history, prime ministers, presidents, an actor from "csi new york." friday night, 9:00 p.m. [laughter] it is my shameless plug for the show. not that there is anything wrong with being an actor, of course, but my being here today does demonstrate how those of you in our national press corps and brought attention to the world around us, eager to hear from all manner of people with differing points of view, and that is good for america. thank you again. i would like to of knowledge a few people here today. last night, the press club have the opportunity to screen a documentary film about my band, our troops, first responders, and many wonderful people who support them. as of july 4, the award winning documentary will be available

online at ltdanbandmovie.com for only $4 and generously, one out of work -- $1 out of every $4 and if will go to the foundation. -- it will go to the newly created gary sinise foundation, which honors and serves our defenders. [applause] i want to thank the director jonathan flora and his wife and producer, deborah. [applause] un your team have worked very -- you and your team have worked very hard and i wish you all the best with the film. -- you and your team out of free hard and i wish you all the best with the film. i am proud of it. congratulations with the july 4 launch. if what i need each are in the course for my new foundation, it takes all hands on deck to keep the engine running and the ship steaming ahead. this mission could not be

accomplished without the support of a fantastic team. some of them are here today and i want to say thank you to stacey will, then robyn, eric matthews, and especially judy otter, and has worked round- the-clock to make the launch of the foundation for a success. thank you all. [applause] i am also thrilled to have one of the foundations founded to reader -- contributors here today, tony. he is a good friend and also executive producer of "lieutenant dan band: for the common good. he has given us tremendous supporter of the years and he is here today. thank you, buddy. [applause] i would also like to acknowledge two friends, mary eisenhower and art wilson. i have had the privilege of

working with both people to people international and disabled american veterans for many years and i am honored to have you both here today. thank you for coming. [applause] as i confess, i am an actor. i have been blessed to -- with good fortune that my career has been lifted to a level some recognition. i can gauge the interest and -- i can engage the interest and energy of a number of people. i can find an audience for my ideas. growing up in a working-class home in chicago, i have learned and have tried to live up to the common grief -- common virtues that my grandparents and parents based their lives on, hard work, honesty in all things, fairness, generosity, and above all the love of this great america that have bless them with the freedom to say what they would and choose as they

wished. and like so many of my generation for many years, i more or less to of the freedom for granted. until santa maria blevins, 2001. -- until 9/11, 2001. it was a bright, sunny morning in los angeles, but as the and images from ground -- ground zero assaultive me. i suddenly understood how vulnerable our great and powerful country truly is. as i came to understand the dark forces loose in the world, i have a new appreciation for why my folks and their folks greeted every day in america as a new beginning. they did not take it for granted. and now, nor could i. i wanted, needed, of role in helping to face this new national challenge. as i watched our military

response and saw our young men and women able to bear the most extreme hardship, even to the most final personal sacrifice, my heart was with them. having veterans in my family and having worked with veterans groups on and off over the years, i knew they were where i wanted to put my efforts to employ such recognition has i had to devote much time and treasurer to their well-being. and so, i was called to greater action. and that journey has enriched my life beyond anything i ever could have imagined. i had intended to give, but in the end, i have received more than anything i've brought to this. like the actors my father and uncles admired during their military service, i volunteered

for the uso, is anxious to help the military personnel and their families know that they would not receive the lack of support that awaited our veterans returning from vietnam. it began by visiting the war zone, offering moral support, shaking hands, autographs, taking pictures. but soon, i was visiting the wounded in our military hospitals and then entertain the military in both the u.s. and abroad. and over the years through this work, i have met extraordinary people. they have inspired me with their courage and perseverance to get through, no matter what it takes, the worst of times. like my dear friend former marine and retired firefighter john viggiano, who on that

terrible day lost his two sons when the towers fell. one of them, john jr., a firefighter, and the other, joe, a police officer. it was on my first trip to iraq in june of 2003 that john and i met the king -- and became fast friends. he introduced me to many of new york's bravest at the fdny who have inspired me with their selflessness, their brotherhood, and their willingness to help others. i am proud to have played a part in the building of the brooklyn wall of remembrances, which honors all first responders killed at the world trade center on 9/11, and i am privileged to support their fire family transport foundation. there are some of my most

special friends. in november, 2003, i made my second uso a trip to iraq, and while i was there i visited a school where u.s. troops interacted with the local children. the troops had completely refurbished the school and were so protective of the children there. this was an inspiration. as soon as i returned i reached -- as soon as i return, i went to my own children school and suggested we put supplies together for distribution to the iraqi schools. what started as a grass-roots effort became a permanent institution in 2004 when i co- founded operation iraqi children with the off -- with the author of "sea biscuit" and most recently, "unbroken," lorez gillibrand. -- laura hillibrand and others. it is now renamed operation international children. in partnership with mary and

people-to-people international, we work directly with the military and have delivered -- we have delivered more than half a million toys, school kids, backpacks, pairs of shoes, arab land -- arabic language books, and sets of sports equipment, all of which have been distributed by our troops to the children in the conflict areas of iraq, afghanistan, djibouti, and the philippines. [applause] after hurricane katrina hit the gulf coast, operation international children established the oic katrina relief fund, sending school supplies to the affected area. and through our military, we are now reaching out to the children in need all over the world, most recently taking part in a military humanitarian relief effort in haiti.

it is my hope that with the help of oic's who was partner, the newly established gary sinise foundation, if this effort can be expanded to support our troops wherever they need assistance in their humanitarian mission. during the early handshake stores to iraq, germany, and italy, i realized my next logical step. i persuaded the uso to let me take a group of musicians i played with on a tour, so i would not only been beading and not -- be meeting and visiting with the troops, but entertaining as well purify -- meeting and visiting with the troops, but entertain them as well. they immediately recognized lt. dan. the character i played in the "forest gump."

so i formed the lieutenant and band. forever i meant fogh -- went on these early trips i would troops that did not know me as gary sinise, but as lieutenant dan. and we took our first concert tour to korea and singapore and diego. we have also done concert in alaska, germany, belgium, the u.k., the netherlands, italy, okinawa, guantanamo bay and afghanistan, as well as dozens of bases all over the u.s. over 40 concert tours in all. i have been on a handshake tours to iraq, kuwait, qatar, germany, italy and i have also had the privilege of the support of hundreds of organizations through appearances with and without the band, all in support of our men and women in uniform and organizations that support them. but as i said, whenever i gave, i was more than amply repaid.

i have been allowed to be a part of our amazing military community, to share in their camaraderie. -- in their camaraderie, and their daily lives, to see these people -- in so many ways the best of us -- a close and personal. as often as i can i visit the wounded here at home and overseas. at each of these visits i am struck by the humility of the young men and women receiving treatment, their courage and determination, their acceptance, and their dedication to our country and their fellow warriors. lending a hand to these brave men and women is truly one of the most rewarding things that anyone can do. and for all they do and all they have sacrificed, they do not ask much in return. knowing that they are not forgotten and that their sacrifice is appreciated makes

a world of difference. the first, and in some ways, hardest obstacle to being of use is coming to terms with the enormity of the need. for example, in partnership with the stephen siller tunnel towers foundation, the gary sinise foundation is helping to build specially designed homes for three severely wounded service members who have survived, losing both arms and both legs. the first surviving quadruple amputee is iraq war veteran brendan morocco. the fund-raising effort to build his home began last year with a lieutenant dan band concert in s.i. and i am happy to say that -- in staten island, and i am happy to say that all the money was eventually raised, and the first of these smart homes has been completed and

brandon will be moving in soon. [applause] i saw crandon at the house -- brandon at the house yesterday and his spirits are high. he is an amazing young man. funding for the second home began with a concert in st. louis on may 27. and we will begin raising money for the third home at a concert in illinois on july 16. these courageous individuals have given so much and it is a good feeling to know there is something we can give back to them. they inspire me beyond words. often but as -- but as i said, the enormity of the need is great and there are many who need our help. i am also a privilege to support and now serve on the

board of snow ball express, which creates hope and new memories for the children of military fallen heroes who have died while on active duty since 9/11. thousands of children have lost a dad or ahman in these wars. -- or a mom in these wars. i am proud that this year, along with the american airlines veterans initiatives, hundreds and hundreds of volunteers, our foundation will once again be part of this worthy effort to support our goldstar children. and there's hope for the warriors. an organization founded by military wives to support wounded u.s. service members, their families, and families of the fallen, are foundation was a proud sponsor of their recent fund-raiser here in washington

d.c. these are a few of the efforts that have kept me busy these many years. while the list of heroism is an liz, the needs of these heroes is just as long -- is and less, -- is endless, the needs of these heroes is just as long. and how we address this is a need -- major national issue. as calvin coolidge said, and "the nation which forgets its heroes will itself be forgotten." the sad reality from vietnam is that we learned the hard way that turning our backs and ignoring our warriors weaken our nation. the hope is that we learn from this and will strive to do better. in a recent speech to the young cadets at west point, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, admiral mike mullen, expressed his fear of a disconnect between the american

people and its military. he said, "our work is appreciated, of that i am certain. there is not a town or a city board people do not conveyed to me they're great pride in what we do, even though house who do not support the war's -- in what we do. even those who do not support the worst support the troops. -- do not support the wars support the troops. but i fear they do not know us. i fear they do not comprehend the burden of the full -- the full weight of the burden we carry or the price we pay when we return from battle of." as someone who can visit our troops in remote places around the globe and has had a close- up look at their skill and dedication and sacrifice, i hope to address that this connection by sharing what i have experienced and expressing my belief in how fortunate we all are off to have such an

exceptional military force in the dangerous and unpredictable world we live in. as journalist, you know that such a dark forces are loose in our day. it is our military that denies these enemies and preserve our freedom, often at the nearest possible cost. -- at the dearest possible cost. but it does not end with a battle. countless millions throughout the world know our military through the other face of america's power, bringing hope and humanitarian relief whenever and wherever it is needed, without favor, to a friend or foe alike. when there is a national disaster -- a natural disaster, japan, indonesia, haiti, it is not china's aircraft carriers that rush to aid with their massive manpower. it is the united states military. it is critical that we do well

if we can to care for the needs of our active duty and retired service members of the military and their families. surely, that is what we can do -- that is the least of all we can do for those who risk their lives every day to defend our freedom. and it cannot be temporary. that is why all my efforts have been pulled together through the formation of the garrison these foundation. our motto -- gary sinise foundation. our motto and its mission statement, to serve our nation by honoring its defenders, veterans, offers responders, -- first responders, their families and those in need. we do this by creating and supporting unique programs designed to entertain, and you gave, inspire, strengthen -- educate, inspire, strengthen, and build communities. it is my hope that by beginning

this fund raising and program generating entity, we will be able to do more to honor the men and women who surf by meeting their needs. -- serve by meeting their needs. i did not serve, but i have never been more reward them when i am with the military community and see a -- the smiles a little visit can bring. it is a way to give back so much. i will never again take for granted how our freedom must be protected on a daily basis, minute by minute. history teaches there have always been those that would rob us of our freedom in order to empower themselves. what i have shared with you today are the feelings, believes, and aspirations that lie far outside the interests of my chosen profession.

while my currency as a successful actor may have gotten here, i am first and foremost a citizen of this marvelous and remarkable united states of america. today, you gave me the use of your immensely valuable megaphone. i hope i used it to address issues of concern to all of us. because everything we are, especially journalists, you who employ the first amendment on all our behalf, everything is predicated on freedom. and i trust we all take great pride that we have so many exceptional people serving out there to protect just that. as winston churchill reminded us during world war ii, "peace and tranquility will only be restored if everyone did their bit."

he considered his it no more important than that of the elderly woman knitting socks for soldiers. that is my aspiration, to do my bit, no matter how large or small. and i know that in this, i am no different than any of you, were any americans. -- or any americans. if we are a great people. we can rise -- we are a great people. we can rise to this challenge and meet its and do as we have always done, master it. those marvelous people reserve -- who served for our freedom and comfort deserve nothing less. thank you. [applause]

[applause] >> i don't want to dare stand in the way of an entertainer who could get for their applause, -- who could get for their applause, but i want to have an opportunity to get some questions answered. thank you for those prepared remarks and we will follow a of it. obviously, in an audience like this we have a journalist, working people, some people from the public and some people engaged in a similar kind of cause that you have been engaged in. when we are talking about your foundation, i wonder if you could talk a little bit about how that is structured. tell us about your staff, where it is located, and what the specific mission of the foundation is involved in a.

>> as i have said, have been very busy trying to support a lot of different organizations, going out and raising money by showing up. somebody like me can show off and draw attention to an organization. i can vote -- to donate my band and the kind of thing, but i can only be in so many places throughout the year. i got to a point where i said, i spend a weekend after weekend, month after month, year after year trying to support as many efforts as i can. if i'm either going to pull back or ramp up in some way. how can i ramp up if i am already committed all over? one of the natural things to do was to create an entity, a foundation that can draw in additional resources, promote the programs that i am supporting, try to guide people who are looking for ways to support and organizations that are reputable that i have been

supporting, guide them to those organizations. if people do not know which one to go to, we are in a fund- raising effort ourself with our foundation. we will guide that money to the right place. if you are looking for organizations that i have been supporting over the years, i stake my reputation on all of the organizations that are listed on our website. you can go directly to them. we want to ramp up our efforts and do good things. i have a great staff. we are located in los angeles. we are beginning this effort right now. >> one of our questioners ast if you could get congress and the administration's to do just one thing for the vets, what with that one thing be? >> cut through the red tape and get down to business. it takes a lot to get your benefits. [applause] >> let's take it a bit more

micro then that, because there is an inherent inefficiency in our government, hence the suburbs of washington d.c. [laughter] not so much of a joke, but is actually true. when you see it needs been on that and is part of your ambition to manage resources with needs, whether it is the government for you, what are people missing out there? -- the government or you, what are people missing out there? >> there are a lot of disabled american veterans. we have 3 million living disabled american veterans. i believe 1.5 million are part of the disabled american veterans organization. there are other people trying to get out there and fill the gap. the government can only do so much. i realize that. we want to encourage organizations to get out there and do more. but for example, you should not

have to go through all of this red tape all of the time to get your benefits. i have a vietnam veteran brother-in-law who crashed his helicopter and never apply for his benefits because he got home from vietnam and it was bad to be a veteran at that time. he disappeared in the system. he had some problems. we brought him in and worked with him. it took four years for a guy who crashed his helicopter to cut through the red tape and get his benefits. i realize we are trying to look back and search through records 30 and 40 years ago. but what about some of the returning veterans from everything after vietnam? we want to make sure that we do as much as we can. i am also going to say that looking back 40 years ago, compared to what is happening today with regard to our returning veterans, there is a

big difference. there are a lot of wonderful organizations that have popped up and we did learn some hard lessons from vietnam of how not to treat our service members. but you know, we can never do enough and we can always try to do a little bit more. >> this is perhaps a variation of the same question. someone is asking what is the most troubling deficiency you have seen in the treatment of assistance given -- given to returning soldiers? >> you know, returning soldiers that are injured? >> that is just how they opposed it. whether they are injured from their service or have come home kind of rapidly -- >> there are some good stories. i know some not so good stories. let's say, you are a returning veteran. your service is going to be

over when you get back. you have been in a platoon in the mountains of afghanistan. you saw 10 or 15 of your brothers killed in front of your eyes, many more wounded. if you come back. there is a domestic problem at home. there's a problem there. you get out of the service. you are despondent. you disappear. we have a lot of homeless veterans who have just tried to get away from it all. if we have to reach out to them and do what we can for them. and then we will have our hospitals. walter reed, bethesda, launched will -- launsiool, balboa. and if i was injured, i would want to be at walter reed. they have an exceptional staff there. i think they were overwhelmed

at that time. it was good the "washington post" discovered some of those issues and brought them to life. the address them. -- they addressed them. we are taking very good care of our wounded veterans. but what happens when they go out? what happens to someone like brendan morocco who has lost both arms and both legs? what happens if the committee does not take care of them? i would encourage you to reach out to veterans. seek out their families. how can you help them? especially if they are wounded for life. that community is critical to how they are going to live the rest of their life. >> someone asked that very question. if a person knows of an individual or a family in need, should they alert your foundation as to the interim -- individual?

what can we do about an individual situation that we think needs help? >> that happens all the time. people reach out to the foundations that have established themselves to be reliable. but also, those communities can take responsibility. you have somebody who goes and is in service to our country. they are disabled. they go back to a very small town somewhere in the united states, a very small community. they are disabled for life. they might not be able to get a job. the community should take care of them wounded warrior. find that wounded warrior a job. we need to find more of our wounded warriors and returning veterans of jobs out there. it is important that we give back to them and help them. your service in service to our freedom mean something to us, so we're going to embrace you and take care of you. >> last year, the defense department reported more than

1100 suicides among returning service members. over the course of your, that -- over the course of four years, that was one every 36 hours. is the u.s. military doing enough to address the problem and what can people in the private sector do? >> this is a very serious problem. i am involved with some mental health issues. i worked very collaborative lee work with a health care alliance run by my friend gave mcintyre. -- dave mcintyre. he is very committed and actively involved with the military to address this problem of suicide. i am kind of in the stress relief business. i am in the morale boosting business. we've teamed up and we spent a lot of time with medal of honor recipients, going to basis, talking to these service members, reaching out to their

families, trying to communicate to them that there are alternatives to taking your life. sometimes they do not think there are. that is a very, very serious problem. it is important the message we send out to our military folks that we've is is always -- duprey visit is always to reach out to someone that you recognize is in need. those signs are clear and we need to try to do a lot more. it is a very, very serious problem. there are a lot of people dedicated to this. we have to do a lot more. >> than there are the people who have passed away. just this week, it has been reported on a number of different fronts that the fbi is running an army investigation of alleged wrongdoing at arlington cemetery, some of that perhaps financial wrongdoing of the loss of -- and the loss of

remains at the cemetery. what is your reaction when you hear stories like that? and is it true that it undermines morale in hostile territory? >> i do not know that much about that particular situation. but i would think it would, yes. i want to mention the tragedy assistance program for survivors. bonnie carroll is over here and she started this wonderful program to work with the families of our fallen heroes. tavis is an incredible organization -- taps is an incredible organization that reaches out to a family as soon as they have been notified that their service member has been killed in action. they are doing wonderful work in making sure that those killed

in action, their families are well taken care of and they get what they need. it is a difficult business that bonnie is in. but she has personal -- a personal relationship with that because she lost her husband. bonnie is right over here right now and i am privileged to have you here today. [applause] >> and by and large, in the work that is done in the private sectors, of course, is very useful and very good. there are occasionally some stories, like in the government, some stories that do not turn out so well. if "rolling stone" magazine reported on some foundations that were started by musicians that have essentially had to be restructured or " -- or closed. when you are on the road, how are you going to ensure that your foundation is operating as

efficiently as possible and, indeed, it is a cause that people will find the on the lure of your personality, which is powerful, that they want to give to an organization like that? >> those screwy musicians -- [laughter] with their foundations, yes. i do not know how to address that, except by saying that personally, i will speak about my work. i have had my boots on the ground here for quite a long time and have dedicated every spare moment to this work in the last 10 years, and prior to that with the vietnam veterans and disabled veterans. i am not somebody who is going to say -- i would stake my

reputation and character on it. i would not tell you to donate to my foundation and then make a mess of it. i am not going to do that. that is not me. [applause] >> lieutenant dan band, the film, that all goes back to a story line that was involved in the vietnam war. you alluded in your speech to out essentially, vietnam veterans were not always welcome home. those who are alive can remember that. -- who were alive can remember that. is it heartwarming to see how the country has changed over time, and leaving aside the politics of an individual engagement, the people seem to have a universal support for the u.s. military? >> as i said, we can never do enough for veterans, as far as i'm concerned.

but we can always try to do a little bit more. what has been heartening is to see how many vietnam veterans have gotten involved with our active-duty service members. it is a partially healing thing for them, to be able to say, i'm going to take care of this soldier when he returns home and make sure that nothing happens to him. i want what happened to me never to happen again, so i will take an active part in that. if i have met hundreds of vietnam veterans that are doing just laughed, reaching out. we did learn some hard lessons from what happened to our vietnam veterans. it is wonderful to see as admiral mullen said, if people don't agree with the war, but you are pretty great, i support the troops and all that. that is important. if you are disconnected to the

military and don't have a personal relationship with someone in the military, if you don't have a friend or family member who is serving, life goes on. pizzas are being made, the movie theaters are happening and gas is a little higher but it is still coming and we're still going about our business and people are making a living. we have some job problems in the country and all that but life goes on for a lot of folks. but the military families are the ones feeling the sacrifice and staying of this particular conflict right now. 0.5% of our citizenry actually serve in the military. 300 million people and under 1% are actually defending the country. that is a small percentage. we owe them. it is heartening to be able to do something and be able to give back. it is a good feeling to take care of these freedom fighters.

i have been involved with veterans through many years through a democratic president and republican presidents. it is about the fact that freedom is precious. we saw on september 11th of what 19 guys with box cutters could do. 19 determined guys with box cutters. god forbid it they get something more serious like a backpack full of anthrax. a suitcase nuclear bomb. that is not fantasy. it is all real stuff and there are people who live 24/7, 365 days a year, wondering how they can destroy the united states. thankfully, we have people 24/7, 365 days a year, every single minute trying to prevent bad things from happening to the united states of america. we all saw what happened on september 11th.

we all felt that vulnerability and fear. then there was anthrax running to the male and we thought what is going on? what is going to happen to our country? where is the military? what they going to do? they are still doing it and we have to back up. -- we have to back them up. >> you are one of handful of prominent celebrities who have reporter -- to have supported republican candidates in office. my sense is you do not wear your party politics undersleeves, but is it hard to be a republican operating in the entertainment industry? [laughter] where -- >> where did you come up with that? i have supported democrats. i'm a citizen of the guided states. i can vote for who are want. i grew up in chicago.

it is daley country out there. so i just try to pass the message that we live in a free country. we can say what we want and choose as we wish. we can stand up for what we believe in. >> have you tried to engage other entertainment people in the cause of our soldiers in the military? have you tried to engage your colleagues in the business and how successful have been? >> yes. i have taken different people with me, michael williams and one with me to my 2000 trip to afghanistan. i have taken other people to various bases. i tick david james elliott and clint howard down to camp pendleton down there.

dana carvey has performed for the troops at fort hood. i set up a concert down there about one month later after the tragedy. i called and he came and performed. recently i did a concert at camp pendleton and became down again and performed for the troops. there are people out there doing it and i'm not afraid to call anybody if i think they can help. >> some people are interested in the creative side of your work as well. you played president truman and have been floated as a possible candidate for a variety of offices. have you had any interest in getting in the actual trenches of office? >> i'm an actor. >> so was ronald reagan. [laughter] >> we get paid to learn lines and had our mark. i have never thought about any of that.

>> what american or international political figure which like to consider playing in a future project or have you thought about it? >> i have not thought about playing another political figure. i have done a few of those and it was fun. i would like to play jimmy doolittle. a great american hero, medal of honor recipient. there are so many recipients stories. i've had the privilege of being a part of the medal of honor society for a while. i am on one of their boards and have worked with the medal of honor society since 2006 and met some amazing american heroes in the medal of honor society and i travel with them on a regular basis to military bases to deliver good messages to our troops. when i see the medal of honor

recipients and see the troops standing there listening to these guys, they can make an impact. jimmy doolittle receive the medal of honor, a great american story. there are a lot of american stories like that, great heroes i would consider trying to play if i thought i could play them. >> you have the ongoing television series work. are you planning to be in motion pictures or is there anything you are working on at the moment? >> sometimes that's not up to me. [laughter] i'm lucky to say and happy to say that "csi new york" got picked up again, so we're coming back for season 8. [applause] that will keep me busy as of july 20th s, but one of the things i do hope happens is people go to my website, it is

an interesting thing what is happening with the lieutenant dan banned film. they're going to launch it on line, so it's going to be available all over the world to people who just want to put $4 in and watch. it's a pay-per-view for about one month's time. through that, you get to see some of the people i interact with every month. you see the entertainment side, it is an entertaining film, it is a moving film. it you get to see some of the people i'm supporting. it kept me in the movie game to participate in this film. ltdanbandmovie.com. it is a cause-driven marketing

campaign and they have offered to donate one of every $4 to the gary sinise foundation and we're going to kick that back to the troops and first responders and people need it. >> one question about lieutenant dan -- it seems all too often celebrities grow to resent a role that becomes so associated with them. you obviously embraced it and have done a tremendous amount of good. was there ever a time meet -- there ever a time when you got irritated at that association or have you been good with the all along? >> i had to get used to it. it was just something that happens. when you are in a movie like that, it was so popular, but it wasn't just playing a character in a popular movie. i realized about a month after i

did the film, i got a call from the disabled american veterans. that's how i got involved. they wanted me to come to the national convention because i was playing a disabled veteran, a vietnam veteran, and liked the way i did it. so they asked me to come to the international convention and it was a very moving experience, something i will never forget, standing there in a room with thousands of disabled veterans and having them applaud those who could stand up were standing up and others were in wheelchairs, applauding me for playing a disabled veteran. they all wanted to call me lt. dan. they'll related to be as lt. dan. i started going overseas and giving tours for the troops and they all related to me as this military member, lt. dan. the story of lt. dan is a

resilience story. someone who goes through the understandable anger of having his military career taken away from him and cut down. now he is a disabled vet and what's he going to do? he goes through the understandable anger into the love of a friend who reaches out ample sum up, he stands up again at the end of that movie. he is strong and has moved on with his life. prior to that, we had not seen a vietnam veteran portrayed that way, someone who could move on and do well. the story of that particular character resonates with the military community that i interact with every single day. how could i say don't call me that? [laughter] the character is alive for them. that's ok with me.

if you are lucky to play someone in a movie at resonates with people like that, it is not a bad thing, it's a good thing. >> thank you very much. we're almost out of time, but before we ask the last question, with a couple of housekeeping items to take care of. that includes mentioning some of our upcoming speakers. we are sort of in the pre fourth of july feeling of patriotism. we're going to have charles bolden here and he will discuss our commitment to leadership in human space flight and nasa's plans to extend human flight beyond the orbit earth. astronauts mark kelly, the congresswoman's husband will be at the head table of that event. july 13th, the owner of our hockey and basketball teams in washington will be here. he is quite accomplished and high-technology realm. we will talk about that aspect of his life as well. you have been year before, but

there is a twist here. we typically like to present you with a true token of our appreciation, which is the coffee mug, but don't leave yet because i'm going to hand to that -- there is another coffee mug in case she might have broken an earlier one. but checking out your website, plenty of service personnel are thrilled by the experience of making videos of you out there all over the world. [laughter] that's not what i planned. it can stay on the floor. i notice that you are out there under the sun, so you need a national press club that while you are performing. [applause]

thank you. how about a round of applause for our guest speaker today? [applause] thank you for coming today. i would like to thank our national press club staff, including the library and broadcast center for organizing the event. thank you and we are adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> coming up, i conversation with chief justice john roberts about his job and the role of his supreme court. then, a work of the u.s. army's

101st airborne division, located along the afghanistan border with pakistan. later on, a discussion about the 2012 presidential campaign with a focus on battleground and early primary states as well as the republican presidential field. the senate was scheduled to take a weeklong break for the july 4th holiday, but the majority leader decided to have senators return tomorrow to continue negotiations on the debt and deficit. on the floor, military operations in libya starting at 2:00 with a vote on moving the resolution at 5:00. the house is out for the july 4th holiday. lawmakers return to business at 2:00 on wednesday. the main work this week will be on defense spending for fiscal 2012. also expected is the flood insurance program.

the house is live on c-span and the senate on the c-span2. on the "washington journal" tomorrow morning -- a reporter discusses the fund-raising efforts by 2012 presidential candidates and the national parties. then, a look at new report showing flaws and the criminal background check system used during firearm purchases. we will speak with a member of the center for public integrity. later, a new york university professor talks about a recent report examining the efficiency, accountability, and productivity challenges facing the federal government. "washington journal" airs live every day, beginning at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> today, on c-span, the dollar llama and vincent harding, martin luther king jr.'s

speechwriter, talk about nonviolence. they spoke at the university of arkansas, discussing osama bin laden's death, the nuremberg trials, the execution of saddam hussein, and the death penalty. >> in the 20th-century, the number of people who kill each other through violence or -- is over 200 million. that problem must be solved. also exploitation lays down the seeds of hatred. these things i fear. >> watch this discussion at 6:30 eastern on c-span. >> tonight, on c-span, a look back at president nixon's foreign-policy, members of his

administration, and the president's son-in-law discuss communism in china, invading north vietnam, and the 1967 war in the middle east. >> the discussion then in the newspapers were nixon's secret plan for peace. what was it? he never talked about it. that was rockefeller pushing nixon to say something, to extend what his plan was. rockefeller did not believe he had a plan. i was waiting for trisha to change your clothes and he comes in after a hard day of campaigning and listening to tschaikovsky. should i ask him not? what is your plan? i'm going to go to peking and moscow and that's how we're going to bring about peace in viet nam and the world. >> watch this discussion from the u.s. navy memorial in washington d.c. tonight at 8:00

eastern on c-span. >> mission control houston -- >> roger, discovery. >> nasa is on schedule for the final mission of the special program this friday with the launch of the space shuttle and atlantis. look back at a shuttle program with the launch of columbia 30 years ago and explore what is ahead for nasa online at the c- span video library -- search, watch, click and share any time. >> u.s. supreme court chief justice, john roberts, talks about the impact television cameras in the courtroom and have on lawyers and judges. currently, the court does not allow live coverage. it provides the transcripts and audio after oral argument. it was just one of many topics addressed by chief justice roberts at the fourth circuit court of appeals 77 annual

judicial conference held earlier this month. this is about 45 minutes. >> informal in the sense that the chief justice and he would be sitting back in wingback chairs in dark suits before a live audience before a thousand people being televised on c- span. it is my high honor and distinct pleasure to introduce the chief justice of the united states, the hon. john g. roberts sr. jr. and the of the it -- and the hon. -- john g. roberts jr. and

the hon. harvey wilkinson. [applause] thank you very much. [applause] thank you very much. thank you for getting up so early today. i am delighted to be here. one of the great privileges of being the chief justice is that you get to be the circuit justice for the fourth circuit, a tradition going back to john marshall. the role of the circuit justice has changed dramatically since chief justice marshall crime. they no longer have to write circuit, that arduous process which began during the told the century, came over to the colonies with the english legal system. even though here, writing circuit was much more arduous given the greater distances and the greater dangers of travel. the system and fell into disuse

after the efforts of 1891 which set up the intermediate courts of appeal system we have today and the practice formally ended 100 years ago this year, with the judiciary act of 1911. since that time, we have worked out what strikes me as a pretty good deal. we will stop -- we will leave you alone in you and by this to your conferences. before i join judge wilkinson, i want to make some comments. my colleagues and i heard 86 cases this year selected from more than 8000 petitions for review. as you know, the argument calendar runs from october to april. , we continued the practice of hearing more cases in the fall than we do in the spring and with the idea that it will give us the chance to start working on decisions rather than having them her distributed evenly throughout the year. the jury is still out on whether

we will continue that practice going forward. as of today, the court has issued decisions in 82 of 86 cases that have been argued. we expect to release the last four on monday. when i say we expect to release them, you can probably deduced that the expectations are pretty high since i am here. in this term, the fourth circuit did provide us with some interesting work. opec four cases from the fourth circuit, two affirmed than two reversed. that is not at all since we reverse more cases than we a farm. the fourth circuit did better than average in fact, i did it better than statistics suggested. i dissented in one of the cases reversing the fourth circuit. i think you should look at this as three were correctly decided and one was not. there are, though, two very

gloating district court judges here who should be recognized for what you may call "the last laugh" award. these were judges who were reversed by the court circuit but then were vindicated by the supreme court. in the last laugh in the janis capital and the stewart case. i dissented in the decision to reverse the fourth circuit. looking forward, by the time the dust settles on monday, we will have about the same number of cases going into october than we had last year. we saw the retirement of our good friend and colleague justice john paul stevens after 34 years of service on the supreme court and 45 years of government service in total. he served our court with distinction and dedication, and

i can assure you he is greatly missed by all in the court. while we had to say goodbye to one colleague, we had the great delight of welcome. another. we are delighted with our newest member, justice elena kagan. she was very familiar with the court's work and was able to hit the ground running offering seven majority opinions this year. i think anyone who follows the work of the court will agree that her opinions are clear and careful and your questions from the bench very incisive. i can tell you she is a very collegial colleague in our deliberations there is one area in particular were she has shown to be a great success. a newly arrived just as at the court is appointed by me to the supreme court cafeteria committee. next it is a way of bringing them back down to earth after the excitement of confirmation.

shortly after she arrived, justice qaeda and succeeded in getting a new frozen yogurt -- justice kagan succeeded in getting a new frozen yogurt machines. no one can remember the prior justices on the committee doing anything. [laughter] i hope this is the loss, will have to comment on the supreme court renovation -- i hope this is the last time i will have to comment on the renovation project. it is nearly complete and under budget. right now, we are removing the construction barriers around the property, putting in landscaping, and then the court will once again be able to reclaim its status as one of the most beautiful landmarks in washington. another sad point, as was mentioned, we have to say goodbye this year to the director of the administrative office, jim tough. he has served -- jim duff.

he served as an aide to chief justice warren burger and now the counselor to my predecessor, chief justice rehnquist, and most recently as the director of the administrative office. jim has served with great distinction and will the minister. i, in particular, will miss his wise counsel on a daily basis. the supreme court, like the rest of the judiciary, and is facing increasingly difficult to budget constraints. we come at the court, are finding ways to do more with less. under the recent budget agreement for 2011, which began in october 2010, the court will operate under the same appropriations level of the previous year. the judiciary will have a slight increase in funding to meet specific needs including the cost of defender services, security, and jury fees.

i very much appreciate the judges and administrative support staff of the fourth circuit in running a very efficient court system in the face of an ever-increasing pocket. -- docket. i will work closely with the administrative officer to ensure that the courts of adequate funding to carry out their vital business. and i am very grateful to the judges and administrative staff of the fourth circuit, my circuit, for the sacrifices they make for the good of the courts in to help sustain the real flaw in our country. i am also grateful to the members of the bar, those in public and private service, for rockbridge and for recognizing that they serving clients but also as officers of the court. now, i would like to turn to a grilling from judge wilkinson. thanks.

[applause] thank you. >> cheese, welcome to the fourth circuit. -- chief, welcome. i want to say you wrote a great dissented it had nothing to do with the fact that it was my case that was reversed. it is such a pleasure. this has been a difficult conference because virginia and south carolina have faced each other in the college world series. we will not inquire about the outcome of last night's game. it is such a pleasure to have you here, chief. i know i speak for the entire federal judiciary when i say how much we appreciate the dedication and the leadership and the sterling character, craftsmanship, warmth, and humor. >> i like this discussion

already. [laughter] >> and judges of all persuasions really appreciate the leadership that you are giving the judicial branch. it has been, i think, almost six years since he were confirmed in august 2005. i was just wondering if looking back, is there any one thing, one event, one opinion, one moment that more than any other stands out from the rest during those first six years? >> it is hard to pick just one. if i had to, i would say it is a moment, not on the bench. i do remember, and i always will

committee first time i presided over the court. justice o'connor on my left and justice stevens on my right, both of whom have since retired, but i would say the most memorable moment was my first time in the conference. the work of the court is, in some respects, very public. the arguments are in public and open to anyone. our decisions are there for everyone to see, but the deliberations of the justices are in private. even some who have been around the court to not have a good sense of what goes on. i certainly did not. i was going in to participate and was also expected to at least get the discussion -- discussion rolling. i did not know quite what to expect, but the level of discussion, the level of analysis that my colleagues were

prepared for, and there were prepared to present their views in a coherent way. the interaction between the justices was at an extraordinarily high level and inappropriate degree of collegiality but reflecting the fact that these people who have looked at so many different authorities it came up with different views and interested in explaining those in the conference room, on one side of the table we have the u.s. reports and on the other side the u.s. code. people will get up, pulled the books down, and they will check their points. i looked extraordinarily impressed by the process that went on there and appreciating the great challenge would be to participate at the appropriate level. >> it is interesting. conference as are talked about a cut and dried affair were you announce a formal reverse and there is not much discussion. i gather your sense is that there is a lot more interaction

and is publicly known. >> at various. -- it varies. by the time you have read the briefs and the arguments, sometimes it is cut and dry. sometimes there is conflict with the courts of appeals, that discussion and conflict in the lower courts to make it clear what we think the right result is so we will not spend hours pondering every case, but others present are difficult issues even when the outcome is clear. the ground of a decision can be the subject of a discussion. >> i have often wanted to ask you about the restrictions on the judicial life. there are so many things we cannot do, and that goes ee and a.a.a. for copper -- doubly and triply for the chief. we cannot do fundraising and we

stay away. we have to be circumspect about the friends that we can hang around with, particularly when they have cases around the court. we have to be model citizens, or at least try to beat in so many ways, and you and i are probably the only individuals on this planet who have a dark suit and tie on saturday morning. we could not even if we wanted to go out for a while light on the town. -- wild night on the town. those this monastic existence-- does this monastic existence began to bother you and where i knew a little bit? >> i was not known for wild

nights on the town before. [laughter] what every think of the confirmation process, it tends to weed out to. as you probably know, it is not as bad as all of that. i do not wear a dark suit and tie when i got my kids soccer games. i think a lot of us develop particular areas where we have to extracurricular activities are focused and some people do not even know that you are a judge and that is comfortable. no, it has not bothered me that much. you get a great opportunity, if you are going to have a wild night on the town, you can have it at the greenbrier. >> we all get a lot of criticism over our cases and it obviously

comes with the territory when you are a chief justice and the importance of the case is that there will be a lot of criticism. in politics, it is so satisfying to be able to fire back if someone said something that you did not like. you could always pontian them back. -- punch them back. hear someone can miss categorize something you haven't gone and say, "i did a first grader would have written a better opinion than you did come close "and i get those types of letters. i hope you do not get those types of letters. but when i was in a newspaper editing, i got paid to say what i thought, and when i was a judge of got paid to shut up. we are living a life of "no

comment" in terms of the criticism that pours in. does it bother you never to be able to respond? >> first of all, a lot of the criticism comes from our colleagues in a dissent or a response to a majority opinion, but the answer is no. once appreciate that the citizens have a full right to criticize what we do and always have so that is not a new phenomenon. want to appreciate -- once you appreciate you are limited to the four corners of opinion that reflect your view of the law and that you're not supposed to get into the partisan bickering. there is a real difference in terms of perspective. i think a lot of the criticism is focused on a particular moment. judges have a different

perspective. why a man little more worried, concerned, focused -- i am a little more worried, concerned about what people with inthink f my work in 25 years. if there is an immediate response, we have a different stand it. >> let's talk about law clerics, if we may. they are some of the most dedicated young men and women everywhere, yet i think it would surprise certainly the future leaders of our profession and a good many members of the public to know that your chief legal assistance are four 20-

somethings. many people would assume they are people with many, many years of experience. some of them are straight out of law school or one or two years in practice. they are always dismayed about how on experience to they are. in the early 1970's's, there was a constitutional challenge for a garnishment proceedings and we went in to discuss the proceeding and within a few minutes, justice powell discovered that none of his clerks knew anything about the mechanics of garnishment. he buried his face in his hands wondering who th people were around him. he was used to working with junior partners and associates. for all of their intelligence and understanding, does the greenness and lack of seasoning of law clerks trouble you at

all? >> no, it does not. i think is a plus. i do want to say that it is a wonderful institution to have four very, very bright law students coming off of the court of appeals clerkship or a district court clerkship come and spend one year with you. you learn a lot about what is going on in the law schools at that level and you get a new perspective that year. then they go out in public service, private practice, in the law department's a public- interest groups, corporations, and they give you a sounding board there as well. the keep you in touch. they also worked extremely hard. they really do, for which i am

grateful and i am sure other judges are. i told my current clerks when they were starting out if they want to know when we are supposed to be here and all that, and i tell them what i was told when i started clerking for a judge. he brought us in and said, "i do not expect you to work every minute of every day, all you have to do is just be here when i am here." they asked when he was going to be here and he said, "well, i will not tell you that." getting back to your question, i think it is positive that they are green, as you put it, and they do not have years of experience and do not know about garnishment because the idea is for you and for me to learn about garnishment to make a decision. it reminds me, again when i was clerking for justice rehnquist,

he had the 10-day rule. whatever assignment you get your law clerks whether it is to grafton opinion, right memorandum, it had at 10 days to do it. i did not care if it was the second version, they had 10 days. i remember going to justice rehnquist and saying, i could do a much better job if you gave me another week. he said, "john, the idea is not for you to do a better job but for me to do a better job." i will stay in the process if you can give me what did you have in 10 days. i do not need a polished final version. that may make it harder for me to make sure that it is my work. they are extremely bright and i am delighted to have them with me and i am delighted to see them leave after one year. i do not want them to get too familiar with the court or the work that we do because it is supposed to be ours. >> i know the work hard.

you had a family member in your chambers and then reported back that columbus day was a federal holiday so they were trying discreetly to find out whether or not you'd be in. well, should become in on columbus day? i'm told your response was, you have the rest of your life to take of columbus day. just not valid. >> to be fair, it falls within the first two weeks of the term. memorial day falls right in a metal department we are ready to have decisions finalized, so they are happy it is only one year. >> at the end of a long term, everyone deserves a chance to recharge.

i think my recollection is right about this, but the reporters were giving justice brandeis a really hard time about the two months in the summer that he took off and did not look at anything. "how can you justify to the public the fact that you were taking these two months off in the summer?" he gave a classic response. "i can do 12 months work in tandem i just cannot do it in 12." i thought that was perfect. do you have some fun things were looking board were to doing during the summer and some hobbies and you just do not have -- looking forward it to during the summer and some hobbies? what will you be doing, in the tradition of justice brandeis, get completely away from the

law? ." -- >> my favorite hobby is sleeping. i am getting ready to do that. people do not realize it is a very unusual feature of being on the supreme court that you are with eight colleagues and you do the same things. on the court of appeals, you work on different cases. district courts, you have a different docket. members of the bar have different responsibilities within your firm more practice. the nine of us read the same briefs, look at the same argument, discussed the same cases, read the same precedents, understand justice brandeis's point. it is a little more intense. i love my colleagues greatly but it is nice to get away from each other for a little while.

of course, i want to emphasize we do not take two months off. hist the process continues -- of course the process continues. things come up in the middle of the term that we have to address. there is some time off. i do some teaching. i have a two week course in the supreme court and i do that at a different venue every year and take the family with been so we can have -- take the family with me. i like to touch upon reading that has nothing to do with law. we try to make up for the fact that there have been weeks and months that have not been able to spend as much time with your family as you would like. >> it is certainly well- deserved. and now many members of our audience love to ask you questions, and i think we should

ask members of the audience to come forward and ask the chief justice question that has been on their minds. dinner required -- to inquire about the specifics of a particular case. this is your chance, your opportunity to ask the chief justice of the united states a question about the supreme court or whatever is on your mind. >> mr. chief justice, good morning. there is a disturbing trend in washington to close the front doors to public buildings, at the capitol and the national archives and recently at the court itself so rather than a symbolic act of descending the stairs to the couple that they are shunned to the basement to enter. which to comment on that decision and whether or not it may change someday? >> the doors are not closed.

they are open. people, tourists, practitioners of leaving from the doors. for security reasons, it was determined it was not appropriate to allow people to come in. i think that is part of what is behind the closures in some other places as well. it is a sad reality, but based on the information in studies we've received, i could not come in good conscience, believe it was not a threat. people do enter in on the side and go through our exhibits down there and come up to the great hall. we do have state of the year security not only for the usual metal detectors but also for chemical and biological agents. i am happy that we are able to keep the doors open so people can exit.

i am very disappointed, as you are, when i was arguing cases and i would like to walk up the steps. it is a very inspirational feature of the court and i am very sad we had to do that. in good conscience, i did not have a choice in terms what the recommended. >> good morning, mr. chief justice. i knew from columbia, south carolina. what we read this summer? >> the first book is a book about florence which has been recommended. i will do my teaching in florence and that, i am told, is a good introduction. that is first on the list. >> been morning, mr. chief justice of. i am from durham, n.c., and the comments about the use of your law clerks, judge edwards suggests that our judiciary

coverall all levels are to disconnected from our academies. i want to know your thoughts on that, whether or not you agree or whether you take the relationship between the practicing bench and our academies are fine or whether or not there is an impact on the future of our profession? "judge edwards is a great friend of mine. he helped me greatly. he was a model for me how to judge. he came in the very first week i was there and said he was going to teach me how to use laptops and you'd be a great thing to benefit. i told him, "thank you very much, judge, but i am not up to

speed on technology and i would rather not worry about." he said, "i did not ask you if you wanted to come i told you you were going to." he was tough to argue in from to when i was arguing cases, and i am glad he did what he did. it's sort of helped bring me up to speed. we are on the same page on that point. there is a great disconnect between the academy and the profession. pick up a copy of any law review that you see, and the first article is likely to be the influence of the manual can -- emmanuel kant on 18th century bulgaria but that is not much help on the bar. i do not think there is anything wrong with that, but at the

academy wants to deal with the legal issues in an abstract and philosophical level, that is great and that is their business, but they should not expect it would be of any particular help for interest to the practicing bar or judges. at the same time, we are not looking corp. for vocational guidance. this is how you fill out a form for an entry of appearance. i do think the academy is interested in having an influence on the practice of law, the development of law that they would be wise to sort of stop and think if this area of research will be of any help to anyone other than the other academics. it is their business. people ask me what the last law review article i read was, and i have to think very hard before coming up with one. >> when we talk about the

different segments of the profession, where do you sometimes hear is that a hot bench is taking over from the bar in terms of oral argument. "there are seven questions from the bench that lawyers rarely get a chance to speak. with nine people wanting to get in their questions, as the oral argument squeezed the lawyers? studies have indicated that over the years, and the time that the council gets to speak has diminished and the questions from the judges have increased. is this a troublesome trend, in your eyes? >> my view on this has changed. [laughter] no, -- well, we are in our

office on the bench. we are working hard to get answers to questions that we think are important to us, and there is a limited amount of time to be had. frankly, i do think we have gone a little too far. there have been moments particularly in this last term when i felt we were not being fair to the lawyers, not necessarily be unfair to our colleagues. to many times when i was would add a question, the lawyer did answer, and we would jump in with what we thought was a good perspective, or just to change the direction of the dialogue entirely. there are some areas where we are trying to do things. for example, i do not think it is quite appropriate -- we have a light that those are my new have five minutes left for rebuttal. it is not fair for us to start asking questions to eat into their rebuttal time when it

wanted to save it. why improbably one of the prime offenders, but i think we do need to make little bit more of an effort to give the lawyers time to give us some kind of answer and make sure we are not stepping on our colleagues questions. part of it requires a very expert counsel. someone who is good can find a way to purchase the court's attention to where they want to go -- a way to focus the court's attention and when they are bombarded with questions, allows them to take control of the argument. i remember when i was practicing before the court when justice stevens asked me a question and before i answered another justice, then another one. i answered the most recent question. i was very proud of myself that i remembered where it went justice stevens, i would like to return to your questions.

he was smiling the the it was a great thing. suddenly, i realized i did not remember what his question was, so it was a good idea but it did not work out. i think we need to do a better job of letting the lawyers participate in the dialogue. we have an extraordinary process. >> it is a difficult thing when lawyers are trying to pick between which justice to answer when the questions come simultaneously. >> right. it is a challenge in part of the practice. >> further questions? [no audio] >> i do a lot of work in my chambers orally which i think is

a holdover from my practice. how do not have them do bench memos. they read the brief, i read, then sometime we will sit down and bounce ideas off of each other. i take one side, they take the other, i will have questions about the record. but usually as a result of that coming additional questions will, and we will do -- will come up and we will do further research. i do have them draft portions of the opinion and they will have 10 days. then we will have a very extensive editing process. we usually go through about 20- 25 draft of an opinion, a change in one part here, changing that part there, looking at that before we send something around to the other members of the conference. they spend a lot of time on the search process.

i do not read every one of the 8000 petitions that come in. they participate in a pool with most of the other justices and will write a memo that is shared. in that respect, i will ask for a little more work occasionally on one petition or another and will ask to see the actual papers. throughout all of that, they work pretty hard. >> this gentleman has been standing up. >> good morning, mr. chief justice. i am from winston-salem, n.c. one thing we are grappling with is social media. it impacts ethical obligation that we have, client confidentiality issues. i figure if we are grappling with those issues that it is probably more acute in the court system.

i was wondering how the supreme court has dealt with this phenomenon. i have this image of one of your clerks tweeting about what is going on. is the daughter of a justice by justice basis? do you have certain policies enacted on that area? -- it is its enacted by justice by justice? >> i sit down with each of the clerks and go through a number of things they need to be aware of. i tell them that they should obviously not be tweeting about what they are doing. a lot of it is inadvertently. we are working very hard on an opinion this week, getting ready, and discerning people can look at what they are saying and put two and two together and figure out what their boss is doing. even unintentionally, they can

sometimes reveal confidences and that is very dangerous. it my advice is to put that all on hold. i appreciate that it is a generational than in the idea of "not being connected" can be problematic for them. the different members of the court are more adept at others. i do not think any of us have a facebook page or tweet, whatever that is. tetralogy is making inroads. when we travel, it is easier to have some of us briefed on some of the products where you can have them electronically available and carry them around. different people have different

comfort levels. in the courts in general, i think it is a challenge in a lot of areas and it is just something that we will have to deal with it is not limited to that. the impact of the new technology on subject of law it is really quite significant. whether what does it mean in antitrust law to have technology gateways that are different than what we are used to, but that, too, is nothing. we think of the supreme court's dealing with the wiretap cases when they were a new thing. of course that is not covered by the fourth amendment. it reversed itself. it will be a great challenge in a substantive area and for many of us to try and keep up with technology. it is one of the great things. they come in and they know how

all this stuff means. they are a resource for educating those of us who are a little behind the curve. >> the theme of the conference has been accessibility of the courts, transparency, and one of the things that keeps coming upper our television cameras in the courtroom. the supreme court has made proceedings much more available through audio recordings, but you have some thoughts on television in the courtroom and in the supreme court for arguments? >> welcome and we are having a pilot project right now under the guise of the judicial conference in terms of the lower courts and experimenting, again, on a pilot basis with television on the court of appeals. we will see what the results of

that are. the judiciary, supreme court, the judges, we tend to move slowly. those of you who have been to the court know that one of the architectural motifs at the base of the posts is a turtle to indicate we move slowly but surely ion a stable basis. now we released transcript of arguments, and now we release them within a half-hour. it used to be that the audio recordings were released at the end of the term, now they are released at the end of every week. we are moving in a particular direction. cameras present other challenges that these other areas do not. i will not go through the whole debate. it is a fairly common one.

we worry about the impact on lawyers. i worry about the impact on judges. i do think the consideration is different. >> do you think judges will ask even more questions? >> i do. that is exactly it. unfortunately, we fall into grandstanding with a couple hundred people in the courtroom. i am a little concerned about what the impact would be. we talk about it from time to time. it is something we consider. other courts around the country have had experience with this. it is different domestically but in terms of its impact worldwide. i will be very interested in what the results look like and we will take those into account

and consider whether or not we need to move forward. that is the nature of the court. if you do not want is jumping into things until we have given it a lot of thought and deliberation. i am told that things really do not happen unless you can see them on tv, but the supreme court is different. i have spoken to people who have been on the senate, and they think televising the debates ruin them. you can go see a senate debate and it is always one person standing at the podium and they say it used to not be that way. >> you think about the great speeches that daniel webster gave, and these great speeches that abraham lincoln gave come and they lived through the ages but they were never televised. it did happen. >> people say other government institutions have been opened up, but it would be interesting

to see what they think what government institutions function better. we of the most transparent branch of government. everything we do is done in public. you see are worked in public on the court. the only impact we have is on the arguments. you see the material we look at in the briefs. what is not public is our internal discussion and argument. the long and short of it is that it is being looked at and we will see how the pilot program does. but does raise concerns, and i have been sharing my views and not just those of my colleagues. >> chief, i'm want to thank you

so much for being here. it means a lot for us to have you as our guest and to have this conversation to begin our supreme court review. i hope you will return every time before the circuit has a conference, because you are always our number one guest and it makes a wonderful occasion for us. >> thank you very much. perhaps he will not be surprised, but i will not sit around for the review of our term, particularly after this. these are not the economics writing about this, so maybe -- these are not the academics

>> here is more from the court of appeals judicial conference. next they talk about how to make the court more open and transparent for the general public. topics include the media coverage of major court cases, cameras in the courtroom and the rule of the internet. -- the role of the internet. this is one hour 15 minutes. >> it is now time for the time in the form called opening up, can the courts be more understood? we have an impressive group of legal thinkers, including two distinguished federal judges, judge barbara maulana keenan of

the fourth circuit court of appeals and george joseph anderson -- judge joseph anderson of south carolina. we have a top law professor, sherlund eiffel -- sherylinn ifill. and marshall garrett. marshall has a bit together place in my life -- in my heart as a justice official. he is placed among was for his most outstanding citizens. in a very basic sense, and i will have more to say about our panelists a little bit later. in a very basic sense, transparency in the court system begins with mutual respect and i

am proud to say that the fourth circuit has always sought to further a collegial and open relationship with the bar as evidenced particularly by this conference. in our courts tradition of leaving the bench to greet council after every oral argument conducted by our court. i have a lawyer friend of mine advise me once that in his experience, because of his experiences in our court, sometimes he would genuinely preferred to leave the courtroom by way of a trap door behind the podium rather than visit with the three judges who have just drilled him in a tough argument. in many respects, however, the

judiciary has a long way to go in the opening up. that is what we will talk about this morning. for too many members of the public simply do not understand the usual system. there are legitimate complaints, of course, that the court sometimes do a poor job of communicating. or that they are insufficiently accessible. technological advancements have created challenges for the judiciary, party giddily in managing litigation and striking a balance -- particularly in managing litigation and striking a balance. almost a century ago, justice brandeis offered a prescription.

"sunlight is the best of ants."ecte he was no doubt aware of the balance that must occur in this context, as a judge. for our panel will not solve any problems today, but we will do our best to identify and confront them with practical concerns and realistic solutions. one of the issues we will discuss is the appropriate role, if any, of cameras in the appellate bench trial court rooms. although the courts have wrestled with this issue since the first televised trial in 1953. the question are arrived in the national consciousness, or ticket of the 1995 during the trial of o.j. simpson.

we all know the case was not difficult, but some of the consequences of the media event of that illustrates how it can transform courtroom proceedings. before the verdict came down in that case, which was a local prosecution in a state court of california, the president of the united states was actually briefed on security measures being necessary to address the potential of nationwide rioting. as americans tune in and held their breath, long distance telephone volume declined by 58%. the trading on the new york stock exchange fell by 41%. water usage decrease as people avoided using the bathroom, and government meetings were cancelled. the people who copulate such things later estimated that american businesses suffered a $480 million loss in productivity.

many journalists and others looked negatively on the media coverage of the simpson trial. but for millions of our fellow citizens it provided a firsthand look at the criminal justice system in operation and sparked a genuine interest and curiosity about court proceedings. and it is one that persists today. i will take this opportunity to throw in my two cents. in my view, there is a serious downside to cameras in the courtroom. i am worried that the cameras recording any -- if the cameras are recording everything, there will be much less room for creativity in war stories told by old and worn out trial

lawyers. besides that, cameras are probably distracting. particularly in the trial courts. media coverage, however, is only one aspect of judicial transparency. in many ways, the courts can control the flow of information to the public, and we are obliged to do so in a responsible way. we must, for example, consider whether to approve sealed settlement agreements and whether to protect government secrets. we should ask how the interest of justice and transparency are served by the use of unpublished non presidential decisions of the appellate courts. we must scrutinize our own practices and our own policies, including asking whether judges ought to provide reasons for or against their own accusals or

whether we should afford appellate lawyers in notice of the opposition. but perhaps the most important area in which the courts can open up is in outreach and education. and this may be the most important area for the lawyers here and the bar association's. earlier this year while testifying before congress about the value of social media, as justice kennedy explained his view that the law lives in the consciousness of the people. it that is an inspiring idea. but is also frightening. the recent poll, for example, revealed that the average american can name more judges on american idol than they can on the supreme court. to reverse this trend, it is critically important that the

bench and the bar play roles in improving the public's awareness and understanding of our court system. sometimes we do a better job than others. it personal example -- a personal example, my granddaughter, katie, came to me a few years back with a first was a grade school assignment asking something that i should have been able to help her with. she wanted to know what judges actually do. before the answer, i took her down the hallway of the robert byrd court house in charleston to the office of my friend judge blame michael. i said, katie, i have the fellow that will be able to give you the answer.

and the judge michael in his patient, but judicious way to advise care be in response to your inquiry -- advised katie in response to her inquiry, that in his experience her pappy's job and that of all appellate judges is simply to sit in a chair and mark things up. she reported that back to merge schoolteacher, who was not at all amused. with a report of what judges really do. cady called me soon after and complained, you and judge michael got me into big trouble.

she loves now that she is in high school to tell the story still. since leaving the bench, justice o'connor has been at the forefront, has been a tireless advocate for bringing the courts to the people. in her awareness initiative aimed at school children, cs.org sheg -- icivi teaches them about the courts. as children grow up, they are

like many adults who are distrustful of lawyers, have contempt for the usual system. we must head off. hours today is a broad topic, but our panel will highlight these important issues among others. i will now follow what i consider a cardinal rule of good lawyering. that is, when you have nothing much else to say, is good to sit down. our first speaker, a man with whom you are all familiar, is jeffrey toobin, a distinguished lawyer, author, and journalist. jeff serves as the senior legal analyst for cnn and has a staff writer at "the new yorker."

he has written profiles of justices briar, kennedy, thomas, and chief justice roberts, plus, articles on subjects such as the legal implications of the war on terror, former attorney general john ashcroft, the florida recount, ken starr's investigation of print -- president clinton, the trials of martha stewart, timothy mcveigh, o.j. simpson. looked's 2007 book inside the secret world of the supreme court and was a multiple award winner of the "new york times" best seller list. please help me welcome jeffrey toobin. [applause] >> thank you, judge. good morning, everyone. thank you for having me. i am the only one that works in

television news, so i assure you of my remarks will be the briefest of anyone else. i used to be an assistant u.s. attorney in the eastern district of the new york. i had a common thing happen in my career with one of my mentors in the office, john gleeson. we were talking about one of the judges, judge eugene nickerson. and john says to me, when you are in judge nickerson's court, you really feel like you are in federal court. i knew what he meant, and i suspect you knew what he meant. the federal courts are the great duel of the american government. they are imperfect, but they work better and reach better results than virtually any other part of the government. and in fact, better than in most parts of the private sector, as far as i'm aware.

that is worth keeping in mind when we discuss the subject of cameras in the court, which is what i will devote my remarks to. when we talk about cameras in the courtroom, it is often in the context of what negative things will happen, what problems can we avoid? but it is also worth looking at it from the other perspective, which is, of what good can be accomplished? both trial and appellate levels work well. and if they are shown to people, by and large people will see that they work well. the litigants who appear in front of these judges and juries and all of the support personnel who work in these courts get a fair shake. i think that is a real virtue.

it is true that federal courts today are public court rooms in the sense that the benches in the back of the court are available to whoever might show up on any given day. but in the sense of modern american life, that is not a quorum. a handful of people who have the time, the inclination, the ability to show up on a given day is tiny. and most americans get their news from electronic sources, whether it is television, radio, or the web. to say that a courtroom is public, when it is only available to be seen by the people who show up on a given day is simply not realistic as a

way of making the courts available. it is true that the fourth circuit, and certainly the united states supreme court, have made tremendous progress in a wonderful way in making the decisions available on the web. i am most familiar with the supreme court's web site, supremecourt.gov. these decisions are really available instantaneously from when they are announced. that is a credit to justice roberts, the court, kathy arbor, who is in charge of the court records. it is also true that audio is more accessible than it used to be. in the fourth circuit is now a rule that the

decisions are now available by audio by the end of the week. that is good, but frankly, not good enough. those decisions should be screened on the web life. -- streamed on the web live. there is no reason they should not be made available immediately. the more controversial question is cameras in the courtroom. i believe they should be available. when it comes to the appellate courts, the question is easier. a lot of the concerns that people have about cameras in the courtroom do not really exist when you are talking about appellate courts. you have professional lawyers arguing. and you have no witnesses. you have matters of great importance almost by definition

because of their legal importance. that is what appellate court arguments are about. you have the ability to plan and install cameras in an unobtrusive way. i think cameras in appellate courts would not be disruptive at all and would be a great public benefit. as i said come on trial courts are the more controversial areas -- as i said, trial courts are the more controversial areas and i still think cameras in the court are a very good idea. we are aware of what is to place in the northern district of california. that would have been a perfect case -- and as you know, the trial judges tried to have cameras in the courtroom. the issue at stake was very important. you have highly competent lawyers on both sides. mostly expert witnesses as

opposed to civilian witnesses. and there was no jury. all of the conditions should have suggested that the cameras should have been in the courtroom. the instances were cameras are often in the courtroom is in trial court. as you know, the casey anthony trial is going on in florida right now. frankly, i think is our business to provide people with fair and accurate coverage of what they are interested in, and trials are one of them. public trials require cameras. the question is, what is the potential for destruction.

unfortunately, we are still living with the legacy of the o.j. simpson case on this one. but there may have been hundreds or thousands of criminal trials televised by now. but we're still talking about this one case in los angeles that was aberrational in every sense of the word. even that case, which i covered and i was in the court room for it -- and frankly, if you go on you tube you can look on the verdict as the camera pans from o.j. to the goldman's family, you can see me sitting there. now when i look at that video on youtube, i always think, you look a lot older now. which is depressing, but true. [laughter] i would like to call your attention to a different case besides the o.j. simpson case, which demonstrates the body of camera court room -- court room cameras.

many of you remember the diyala case in new york city. it was a case where an african immigrant in the bronx was on his doorstep in the bronx and he had a confrontation with four police officers and he was shot 41 times and killed by the police. it was an extremely controversial and incendiary case in new york in the 1990's. if it had the potential in many respects to be a broad banking situation. there were a lot of people in new york that were very upset, for understandable reasons. that was one reason the trial had a change of venue. it was moved to albany. which frankly, upset the people in the bronx even more. it was as if they were told they could not provide fair justice in a case of this magnitude.

the case was in albany, and it was televised. it was very closely followed in new york and all four of the officers testified. and the people of new york saw that it was a very hard case, and the officers, whose behavior had often been characterized very negatively, they have an explanation. you can argue about whether it was good enough or not, but the public was educated about the difficulty of the case. and the trial moved forward and the four police officers were all acquitted. and the reaction in new york was entirely civil. i submit to you one reason why the reaction was so civil is that people did not get all of their information from second- hand, third hand, undoubtably

wrong from radio talk-show host. and even if they did not agree with the verdict, they understood it. it was a wonderful example of why cameras can be a force for good. one argument from george's about why cameras in the courtroom are not a good idea -- from judges about why cameras in the courtroom are not a good idea is because you will get only sound bites. and i say, too bad. we live in a country where we decide how we present our product, not the government. we also do our best to be

accurate and to be fair when presenting the news. i think that is generally the case. by and large, that is the case. it public proceeding can be televised and edited -- the fact that a public proceeding can be televised and that iedited is nt a good argument. that is my argument. i hope you will consider it. i will sit down and listen to everybody else. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, jeffrey. it is now a great pleasure for me to introduce my distinguished colleague, judge barbara milano keenan. judge keenan came to this record in 2010 after serving as a judge

at every level of the virginia court system, including more than a decade at the supreme court of virginia. she was the first female judge elected in virginia when she won a district court seat in fairfax county in 1980. and she is the first female judge in the fourth circuit. despite all of that history, there is a little-known fact about judge keenan that i will share with you this morning. that is, judge keenan is actually a west virginian. i will leave that point right there. please welcome judge barbara keene in. [applause] >> thank you, judge king. it is great to be here. yes, i do consider myself more than half of a west virginian because that is where my whole family is from.

bob has asked me to talk about three subjects today, and i will be touching on them pretty quickly. i expect they will be developing in our core discussion later. he has asked me to talk about education, electronic media, and the issue of unpublished dependents. with regard to education, different surveys on the subject are pretty staggering in terms of what americans know about the legal system and about our branch of government. nationwide surveys show that only 50% of americans to begin with can name all three branches of government. fewer than 30% of americans know that the united states supreme court does engines -- decisions are final.

only half could name a single case, and of those who could name a single case, 90% of them named rover says wade. we need to educate -- roe vs. wade. we need to educate our public. we need to instill confidence in our courts as our arbiters of many issues that are vital in many people's lives. i would submit to you that it begins early. it should begin in the elementary schools. for that reason, justice o'connor is absolutely directly on target for where we -- for where to start. we should not even be waiting until high-school. i spend a lot of my time in schools, and i know a lot of you do, too. the best reason for me to do it is that is a lot of fun. it is so enjoyable to hear kids,

to exchange ideas with them, and again, my personal experience, i saw a lot of power in terms of diversity and who brings the message to the audience. one of the most frequently asked questions i get from elementary school students is, can voice the judges, too? -- boys be judges, too? to which i answered very boys work, yes, if the voic extra hard, they can be judges, too. [laughter] they are identifying with the speaker and they're asking themselves, can a person like me be chosen for the job? important for all of us to bring our diversity and our

rich backgrounds into the schools. one other very famous -- one other great question i get from elementary students is actually a bit of a stumper. they ask, can judges use common sense? it is interesting to formulate an answer that sounds reasonable. but with regard to high-school audiences, the questions get a lot more diverse and sometimes involvingvery focused i locker searches and very personal issues, but then they ask about matters of law and privacy issues and a great scope of issues. i suggest you that there are some resources that make it very easy to bring these things to the students. i have an online outline that lifts and a lot of these resources. if you are willing to go into the schools, take that out line.

it has enough information in it. you will not need to do any advance preparation. one of the best resources for going into the high schools is the "new york times" article that is entitled "10 things that every team should know." they give you a teaching elements that every case it deals with. the one the students are always fascinated with is that teenagers can be tried as adults in criminal cases. they almost never think about that. and then as judge jean mentioned to you, justice o'connor's icivics website is just fabulous. they can play roles, the president of the united states,

playing partner in a law firm or be a member of congress. kids love it. >> with regard to a dole out reach, i think the bar has done a wonderful job in various states in terms of how lawyers protect the rights of citizens, particularly the more vulnerable, children and the elderly and disabled. i think you as members of the bar are doing a great job and i would encourage you to continue in this regard. it is so important in terms of educating our citizens and is a wonderful opportunity to reinvigorate your belief in the law and to teach peeper -- to teach people who are eager to learn. with regard to electronic media

issues, as you are well familiar, the electronic media are generally not permitted in the federal courts. the federal rule of criminal procedure 53 deals with that specifically, and the judicial conference had taken action in 1996 to lift the ban with regard to appellate courts. but today, there are only two federal circuits, the second and ninth, that allow broadcasting from the courtroom. in 2010 -- we heard this yesterday. you may not have heard this. the judicial conference is now engaged in a pilot project to evaluate cameras in the federal district courts. the program will be within the job -- the trial judge's discretion to allow the cameras and the consent of all of the parties to the proceedings will be required. the court, not the media, will

operate the cameras. and the recording of members of the jury will be prohibited. it'll be interesting to see how that develops. the issues in the united states supreme court with regard to park -- broadcasting have been mostly in the state system. a case in texas held that it was a due process violation because of the inherent distractions of the electronic broadcasting system to televise the trial. 16 years later in champ vs. florida, -- chandler vs. florida in a unanimous 8-0 vote it was held that it was not a violation to broadcast over a defendant's objection. within 16 years this court virtually turned around on the

subject with regard to the state system. and as mr. toobin has indicated, the big case regarding federal courts came down last year in holly verses. . -- holly verses perry. in hollingsworth case i thought it was a very good decision of the supreme court came out with. the basis of the court's decision was that there had not been enough time for comment on the local rule that was required in order to permit to the broadcasting. the majority of the supreme court in an unsigned -- or on authored -- unauthored opinion said that it was just not enough time to comment and then added

that was similar to suggest such as gender equality. i thought that was interesting rationale. and the defense came along and said, well, you said that there -- that the comments were not long enough, but you had thousands. the court was very strongly divided on this issue of the access that judge walker wanted to permit. judge walker had something of the last word on the subject because he got the lawyers to send tweeds of the proceedings. ets of the proceedings.

virtually all state courts allow broadcasting in at least appellate courts. in practice, it does not happen too often. first, i think because there are not as many requests, even at the appellate level. my experience in the supreme court in virginia was that probably two criminal cases per year, maybe three at most, would there be a request for a broadcast. there are very few trials broadcast. there are inherent difficulties and how quickly things can go wrong. and in the context of a jury trial, judges have to be managing a lot of things at once. if this is all happening on tv, it's tremendously complicate the dynamics.

with regard to the appellate broadcasting, my experience was that it just did not make any difference to me as a judge. you do the same job and ask the questions and lose any sense that the cameras are there. i know my colleagues do not all share this point of view. but i think it is a very interesting argument for a panel discussion. we're living in age where decline of the print media is astonishing. in 2009 alone, 100 newspapers closed, and 10,000 newspaper jobs were lost. there is this large deficit where the people who traditionally have broad a lot of disinformation to the public to do this anymore.

does broadcasting step forward? if not, what is left to the people? lastly, i would like to touch very briefly on published opinions. it is kind of like what we would say in the washington area, and inside the beltway proposition. it may be more interesting to judges in appellate courts. but i think it may also be interesting to judges and attorneys in trial courts. should they be publishing more? as you know, under rule 32.1 in the rules of appellate procedure, opinions can be cited after 2007 even though they are not finding president. -- precedent.

just a little over one half of the cases that are orally argued are published. generally, the decision whether to publish is made by the opinion doctor. when the case is circulated -- the opinion that offer. when the cases are committed, sometimes the court weighs in. but it is definitely in deference to the author of the opinion whether it will be published. in the court circuit, 93% of our cases are decided by unpublished opinion. this is the subject of some controversy and i think we will be talking about did it in our panel. when you have an appeal of right, you have a huge volume of

cases and you have a largely -- you have largely repetitive cases. in a state system where you have a rift system, like we had in virginia -- a writ system, like we had in virginia, every case was a published opinion. every lawyer got a 10 minute oral argument in order to convince a court to take the case for full consideration. but as a trade-off, the cases that were not orally argued were disposed of simply with blanket deferments. while there was more publication of opinion and certainly more oral argument, because anyone who argued a case could at least argue that the writ stage, 75% were argued without any difference. which is better? i think it offers a very

difficult question for our continuing debate. those are my basic thoughts on these three subjects. i am looking forward to hearing the panel's observations and listening to questions from you. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, judge keenan. our next panelist is the man behind the web's first and most popular blog on appellate litigation. it is a daily collection of .inks to legal nuancnews its author is also a great writer in his own right. howard speaks to us today as a practicing attorney, as a representative of the new media,

and as one who simply has his finger on the " -- on the pulse of our federal courts. please welcome howard ashman. [applause] >> thank you, judge keenan, for the very kind introduction. in addition to working at a firm in philadelphia, in my spare time since may 2002 i have maintained a website or blog known as "how appealing." i link to articles about the use. system -- of the judicial system. thousands of lawyers and others

to visit my side every day. if i am here as a representative of the so-called new media, then is a testament to the openness of the federal judicial system. the federal judicial system has made opinions, at least at the appellate level, readily available online. throughout the nearly 10 years i've run my blog, federal appellate court on a daily basis have posted their opinions on- line free of charge over at their website. indian -- indeed, there is a special line for oral argument recordings freely through its web site. to let people know what is going on for those who cannot be here in person. notwithstanding the many things that i could easily describe at present, certainly, improvements can still be made.

i will focus on two in my remarks. one involves the district court within the circuit, and the other involves the fourth circuit itself. unlike other web sites for you can go to the web site, click on some length and then click on opinions without having to log in and identify yourself -- if you are a member of the public, you can just go in without the that. the united states district court has different methods, to say the least. not surprisingly, each federal diss record has its own web site. under the -- district court has its own website. under the federally enacted law in 2002, they must make their website available free of charge. there are subscriptions to

public records that you can sign up for over the internet, if you have a credit card. i am sure not everyone can get a card. that is the only way they are available through this site. let me walk through briefly the nine websites of the circuit and describe briefly. this trick of maryland -- the district of maryland does provide free access without any login whatsoever if you know where to look. there is no link to opinions on their website. opinions are available under the link to "case information." thankfully, it occurred to me

that i should probably look there. if you know where to look, you can do it without any login. turning next to the state of north carolina where there are three district. the eastern district is not make any of its opinions available online through the web site without a login being required. if you want access to the opinions of the eastern district, you have to have a pacer account and you have to login to that account in order to find those opinions. and you have to know how to have a pacer account, which is not readily described. the same is in the western district of north carolina. the middle district does provide some access to selected opinions. how the units are not selected

-- are selected is not available free of charge. only some of them may be available without a login. turning to south carolina, which has a single district, no opinions are freely available without a login. turning next to virginia, the eastern district, direct users to pay its -- it directs users to pacer and it describes that if a judge has uploaded an opinion in a manner that describes it as an opinion, it will be available free of charge through pacer. but a judge has uploaded it in a manner that describes it as something other than in the opinion, -- then an opinion, then you will have to pay fees for the documents. when i got here on wednesday afternoon i got here and wanted to update my plosser.

-- update my blog. low and behold, a federal district judge located in the southern district of florida had issued a decision that was getting reported in the media declaring unconstitutional under the supreme court decision in the ring against arizona the method in which diss record declares the -- district court declares the death penalty unconstitutional. this decision was 93 pages long. i went to the southern district of florida website to look for the opinion, and like many of the district's here, they do not make it freely available.

i had to login to pacer. fortunately, i believe the associated press had reported the docket number of the case. i go into court records and was charged 8 cents -- a small charge, but a charge nonetheless. this was dogged as a 93 page order -- on the docket as a 93 page order. this decision is freely available to the public in a way that should have been available. even the pacers system has not been perfect in providing free access. through pacer you can get free

access to opinions if the judge has described his or her opinions as an opinion. the northern district of was for jim provides free access without any login required. last but not least, the southern district of virginia gives free access to some but not all opinions without requiring login when the judges give back to their offices next week you take a look at their website and

they get easy access under the e-government act of 2002 without having to send their credit-card internet -- information to the federal judiciary. the last and they want to do is have to do that in order to gain opinions. let me turn next and finally to my own inside baseball topic, which is with regard to the fourth circuit. that is in regard to the issue of learning who is on the moral argument panel. our practice in the third circuit. greg the course of my career, i have been accustomed to where two weeks before an oral argument date, the kurds circuit will come back in the day, send me a letter or today any mail to gain access to an electronic letter that says will be appealed be orally are did or

not and will identify who the judge is on the panel assigned to the case. throughout the entire federal appellate level, in the 13 different u.s. court of appeals, 10 of the 13 federal court of appeals follow that same general procedure. i believe in the d.c. circuit, you learn how your panel will be before the cases brief to. that is the one circuit that tells the way far in advance. by the time you get there the day of camino who the judge will. not in the fourth, seventh, or federal. what is the reason for why it is done this way? the answer i hear is that is just the way it has always been done. there are other reasons that provide more of an explanation. let me begin by trying to explain the benefits, and advocates perspective before knowing who will be there in an advantage. it allows the advocate to

prepare knowing, perhaps, the likes and dislikes of the judge, the background of the judges in be able to take into account whether they will play a role whatsoever in the next outcome of the case. it provides some one who perhaps is not a repeat player in front of the court with more available plainfield linolenic having more confidence. i can assure you that people who argue all the time have a good feel for what the judges likes and dislikes are. and they would be able to implement that knowledge without having to know in advance. people coming into the fourth circuit for the first time ever, and they will not have that ability to. if they knew who the judge would be in advance, the plainfield would be more level. perhaps even more importantly where this comes in to

accounts, refusal issues is not something that is left to the judges solely. the judges play a very large role in trying to determine if they need to recused from a case. in cases where the judges identity are known to the lawyers and parties in advance, they can bring to the judge's attention iraqi resolve that the judges may have overlooked. and in this system does not always worked perfectly. after an argument has occurred, there are different competing interests in deciding whether an attorney will drop a possible recusant basis ago. the judge is telling me he disagrees with the other side position and then i can tell my client the judge disagrees vehemently and may have reason

why he or she should be recused and my client will give me a stern talking to about why we should not try to depict -- try to recuse. it's the judge's involvement would have been known before oral arguments, we could have been bringing that took their attention. similarly, after the fact, if the judge in question seems to be opposed to your own sides oral argument, it is touchy to try to bring to attention that there is a basis for the judge to be recused it is you can be sure they will not be putting favorable of that being brought up at that point. the other judges support feel you are trying to play games. the responses i hear from judges to defend the fourth circuit is that lawyers can be prepared for anyone to shop on the day of the

oral argument, which is butrue. there are many judges who come by and visit from within the district of the circuit and outside of the circuit. there's simply no way to be prepared for any judge, any federal district or circuit judge within the united states to be on your panel or a retired justice from the u.s. supreme court. many judges feel that lawyers will try to pander to the court or ingratiate themselves in a way that is not proper pricing, "judge, you wrote this decision which encumbers this outcome." oral argument audio has been available over the internet. even though they do not reveal their identity, but lawyers will go in and try to do that. pick if you say? -- if you say that, they will

give you a stern talking to. anyone on this court is equally as capable as i am to understand what that decision means. i think the judge is within the fourth circuit can indicate the lawyers as to the proper to argue to judges. that is the trauma of pandering or trying to ingratiate, and it is not solved by revealing the day of the judges as i have written in my calling for the philadelphia legal news newspaper. if they do not want them to pander or argue depending on who they are, they can sit behind a screen and have their voices distorted electronically as though they are the mafia testifying in front of congress. the answer to this problem is not simply to identify the judge's only on the morning of the oral argument. in fact, if the judges do not want them to know who wrote the

opinion, the court could decide to issue all opinions the way that the supreme court supposedly did away back when. in order to level the playing field to allow lawyers to prepare in the best possible way, in my view, and to allow the court to benefit from recusant but that is generated from the lawyers and parties before the judges have heard your argument, i think the court should seriously consider trying out for a year or two a method where the panel identity is revealed to the lawyers some time in advanced. we do not the to try to jerry rid the process, but one week or two in advance where they have the date crosstalk was the day they will be in court and the court will understand, as well the lawyers, that the identity is not the basis for trying to get out of the oral argument

date. in these ways, i believe the fourth circuit and the district courts within the fourth circuit could increase public access to their rulings and could increase the efficiency of the system and could allow attorneys themselves to be as useful as possible to the court in oral arguments. thank you for your attention. [applause] >> thank you. i have already mentioned briefly our next panelist. he is deserving of a more formal introductions. he has had a long and distinguished career rich began with a stint as an assistant united states attorney in the southern district of west virginia. he currently heads the executive office of united states

attorneys. marshall also be served for more than one decade as director of the justice department's office of professional responsibility. and counsel to the attorney general for professional regard stability. and he speaks to us today as an unofficial emissary of the executive branch. please welcome marshall jarrett. [applause] >> i am pleased to be here this morning of this lovely location in my home state of west virginia is a special honor to appear here with judge king, for whom i worked when he was the united states attorney in this district. he has remained my friend and a

work -- i learned a lot from him when i worked for him and more over the years. when i first became a prosecutor here, you could tell you had a big case when it during the time for closing arguments, some of the other prosecutors in the office would come down ball and go watch and in the courtroom. you could tell you had a really big case when "the charleston gazette" sent in error reported to cover the trial. back then, i could not have imagined the time when, you could watch a trial from a computer screen or cellphone coming either sitting in an airport or cut starbucks in. i cannot imagine the day would come when you could read on this wondrous inventions called and i had a court blog -- called an ipad a court log.

you could find of the color of someone's as soon or find out why a juror was late. i did not know there'd be a web site called whosarat.com naming the people who cooperate with the government. modern technology in today's media have dramatically changed the way that the public and litigant's interact with and learn about the courts. i applaud the courts recognizing that the time has come for us to ask ourselves, "are we using the best technology and policies to make the courts open and accessible to all people, and at the same time are we've remaining mindful of the balance that is crucial to the competing interests in promoting the public's right to know and their

confidence in government institutions with protecting individual rights, whether it is a defendant's right to a fair trial, or a victim more witnesses right to privacy?" and these are important issues to the department of justice and to me in my capacity as director of the executive office for the united states attorneys. like most of us in the room, the departments of justice starts from the position that when happens before the court should be open, accessible, and transparent. united states attorneys' manual, which contains much of the department's policies for its lawyers, provides that. careful weight must be given to the constitutional requirement of the free press and public trials, as well as the right of the people in the democracies have access to information of

the conduct of law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and courts consistent with the individual rights of the accused. further, recognition should be given to the need the public safety, the apprehension of fugitives, and the rights of the public to be informed on matters that can affect enactment or enforcement of public laws or the change public policy. in conducting this careful balancing act, the u.s. attorney's manual advises that careful weight should be given in each case to the rights of the victims and litigants as well as the protection of the safety of other parties and witnesses. to this end, the courts and congress have recognized the need for limited confidentiality in certain areas, such as ongoing law enforcement operations, grand jury in the tax matters, and state secrets for its part, the

department has established policies to ensure that our trees deviate from the general principle of openness and sake confidentiality only when clearly necessary and then only to the degree necessary. notwithstanding the general principles of openness, we take steps in our work every day to strike the right balance between those competing interests between openness and privacy. for example, we all share the duty to protect private information, like social security numbers, tax information. most, if not all jurisdictions, and cannot even filing notice without first checking the box of knowledge. the obligation to redact private and permission from court documents. the public's ability to access documents from any federal court in the country through pacer is a phenomenal development, notwithstanding the minor charge. it is still a phenomenal

development in the goal of achieving openness. it implicates competing concerns. on one hand, public access to information about the court has never been greater with the availability of a court documents and dockets on pacer, which almost anyone can access with a credit card. on the other hand, this accessibility to court documents renders ineffective protection of what we call the practical and security, the idea that, although in permission is publicly available, the difficulty of compiling such as affirmation and the extra effort needed to go the court house affords some measure privacy. for example, on plea agreements in criminal cases may contain information about a defendant was cooperating law-enforcement. with the websites like whosarat.com, the ready

availability of plea agreements threatens the safety of witnesses and potentially the integrity of the judicial process. it is just not cooperators, but victims and witnesses alike may be reluctant to participate in our judicial process knowing their testimony may be broadcast far and wide across a wide range of media. so, it is essential in the basic functioning of our adversarial process, we find balanced ways to protect privacy while affording the litigants a fair and open trial. in addition, preserving the integrity of our criminal justice system requires the department of justice to take a particular interest in protecting ongoing investigations. if law enforcement agents who have been conducting a long-term confidential investigation of a serious crime, no one should jeopardize that investigation by exposing it prematurely.

no one should want to alert criminals so they can avoid apprehension, destroyed evidence, or take harmful action against associates they believe may have turned on them. even worse, they should not be alerted to a pending montfort's investigation in time to arm themselves and resist one law- enforcement officers come to arrest them. another reason we seek to prevent the disclosure member mentioned ongoing investigations as to prevent the release of information about allegations that may turn out to be unsubstantiated. we do not want potentially innocent people to be tainted by the disclosure of the fact that we are under federal domestication. for this and other reasons, the law has struck a balance in favor of ceiling grand jury procedures, wiretap applications, and certain search warrants. when we come back will circle and to the point of openness, there is a next step that we can

take. what may not be enough trust unlock the doors, and sealed documents, and stand back to wait for people to take initiative to learn about the court systems. even though the courts of always been open, the reality has been the very people were willing to take a walk to the courthouse to watch a trial, go to the clerk's office and put a nickel in the copy machine to make copies of a civil settlement for plea agreement. now the walk to the courthouse has been replaced by a few keystrokes on pacer or, in some instances, the press of a tv remote. historically, the public has relied on the media to find out what is happening in the courtrooms. before we had 24-hour news channels, there is not always space in the newspapers or time in the newscast with the public to get the big picture or the smaller details of what was happening in the courtroom. the current realities is that the general public will get their legal news from television by logging on 20 website,

according to pure research. the majority of americans get their news from television and the internet with the the internet surpassing television for those under the age of 30. rather than relying on the media as the sole source of information, the department of justice has taken steps to use these new tools and become more active storyteller's about the work in court and the last year, and in response to the president's directive, the department of justice, along with other executive branch agencies, adopted the open government plan. one of the things the department has pledged to do in the open government plan is to release more information about its representation of the united states in courts. this is where the public tisha additionally relied on third parties to provide brief come incomplete descriptions of what we have gone. this effort to provide warmth permission to the public on may

1st, the united states attorney community launched a new page on the public web site called the briefing room which highlights the work of u.s. attorneys offices across the country. the briefing room offers news, statistics come off beds, and other efforts -- statistics, op- ed's and other efforts. we want to enforce the federal laws and represent the interests of the united states. helping the public to understand the work of the department of justice as much more than talking about cases we prosecute and defend. just a few days ago, the department launched a new web site called crime solutions which is a searchable online database of evidence-based programs designed to and form of mayors, police chiefs, judges, practitioners, and policy makers about what works in criminal

justice, juvenile justice, crimes, and victim services. the includes information on more than 100 deprograms covering. range of justice-related topics. the website also provides evidence of ratings, actually valuing the competency of the programs, rated effectiveness, to indicate where there is evidence of research that a program has achieved its goal. this website is just one way that the department is using technology to disseminate said of the our knowledge and practices around the country and to foster justice programs that translate evidence and the practice. open government does not just to inform the public. one of the goals of an open government is to find solutions and to share solutions to improve our federal, state, local carbore justice systems. we should embrace the communication tools at our disposal and use them to educate the public.

we must do so responsibly, balancing the right to a fair trial, the right of the public to know, and the government's ability to effectively enforce the administration of justice. we should be optimistic that public confidence in the judicial system will rise the more we are able to learn about the work we do in the federal courtrooms every day. thank you and i look forward to our discussions and questions from you. [applause] >> thank you commercial. our next panelist is a district judge to punish south carolina and is a shining example to those in the appellate court to just marked things up. and in 1986 when he was a mere 36 years old, judge anderson was appointed to the federal bench in south carolina which makes him the youngest federal judge

in the history of that state. fortunately, for us, he is also a scholar on the subject of secrecy in the court system and he is a is steadfast advocate of transparency. please welcome judge joe anderson. [applause] >> thank you, judge king. if you go to the electric docket for a district that i will not identify seeking information about a particular docca, one entry would appear on the screen. on that entry is the caption of the case. the caption reads, "sealed v. sealed." there was an order entered which provides as follows per. the entire record come exit for this order, including pleadings

to a transcript, prior opinions, memoranda and order will be sealed. access other than the parties to this case shall be had only upon further order of the court. it is so ordered. we are all doing debt of gratitude for selecting such a timely topic for this year's conference. we would all agree that the judicial branch is the least understood of the three branches of government. ineffective system for solvent civil and criminal disputes appears in sustaining public confidence in the work of that system. it is hardly for the citizenry to have confidence in a system they do not understand part of the reason for the confusion is our own fault. we speak our language, we follow ancient traditions, we seek to administer justice without any real concern about planning -- about explaining what we do. in some cases, we slam the door on the public to information

about the case and its procedural history. it is that last component, what i prefer to call government- enforced secrecy, but i would like to speak to this morning. the question of whether and to what extent a judge should order a confidentiality case is one that has troubled courts and policy makers for years. events of the past decade, and balding court sanctioned confidentiality, having the opinion of some brought our courts in disrepute opportunistic -- disrepute in keeping vital information about public safety of the domain. i'm speaking about the firestone tire case. events such as these have caused lawmakers, but state and federal, to impose draconian sunshine litigation laws. it should not also caused lawyers and judges to take another look at our existing practice, a practice that sometimes involves the court

seal and anything that the lawyer's request to have sealed. there are, of course many occasions where information deserves to be kept confidential, trade secrets, proprietary and permission, security data. they all deserve the law's protection. in order to routinely protect the confidentiality of information such as that. the difficult questions occur, as they always do, at the margins. for example, what should a judge do in groundwater contamination case that will settle, but only if the judge will enter in an order requiring the destruction of all documents and a gag order on the lawyers never to discuss the case with anyone? does the judge have an obligation to the legal system at large or to a future litigants? they may live in the affected area and many the discovery or at least the information developed in the first case. suppose the judge presides over the settlement of an action

involving a teacher accused of molesting a child. he is told the case will settle only if the judge will go along with the confidentiality order and a gag order and impose a ban on formation. but the judge knows the teacher intends to remain in the classroom? should they sign a confidentiality order? these are all hypothetical cases, but let me give you some real-life examples. in july 2004, johnny bradley and his wife, both career navy recruiters, began a cross- country trip to his new station in pensacola, florida. having following the news accounts about firestone tires and the dangers associated that had only recently come to life, and johnny chose to equip his ford explorer with cooper tires and even had his vehicle checked before leaving for florida. while in new mexico, with his wife behind the wheel and their

son asleep, the tread separated on one of the rear tires, the vehicle rolled over four times rendering him unconscious for two weeks and killing his wife. he missed his wife's funeral. only then did johnny bradley, perhaps the most prudent, learned that cooper tires, such as the one on his vehicle had also been the subject of more than 200 lawsuits. we also learned that almost all the documents about those fires were kept confidential by judges around the country who had kept a vital information from the public that could possibly prevented the tragedy in his family. he presented all this information in sworn testimony to a congressional committee two years ago. in 2006, the florida judiciary helped add a new verb, "superseal." it was coined by two "miami herald" reporters that counties had been keeping a secret pocket

consisting of nearly 200 cases including negligence, malpractice, and fraud that had all vanished into illegal black hole where it was impossible to tell, not only what was in the, but that they had existed at all. when i first read about the florida experience, i think back to the movie "men in black" where he would get out of his memory zapper. in 2002, the judges in the district of south carolina voted unanimously to adopt a local rule for the court which provided some fairly modest restrictions on a court order secrecy associated with the settlement of cases. when the rule was first released for public comment, reactions from the camera on the country were swift and rhetoric heated. the debate in the submissions we received revealed that the opposing camps were deeply divided with little hope of a

middle ground alternative acceptable to both sides one writer suggested that the members of our court were, and this is a direct quote "modern- day thomas jefferson's." the other side suggested that those fighting in the gulf or were fighting in part "to prevent the type of secrecy this would come about." this was the first, i learned saddam hussein had a policy on court secrecy. in the organizations, at its professors, and public interest groups such as ralph nader's citizen works supported it. interestingly, the organized plaintiff bar supported the rule change on paper here. many plaintiffs' lawyers told me privately and off of the record that the new rule with the good one. why? because, i was told, a court

order secrecy was a bargaining chip that could be used to leverage more money from the defendant in a settlement. in other words, many defendants are not satisfied with a bilateral agreement between the parties to maintain confidentiality. instead, they want a judge's signature. in cases oftentimes workable of the settlement does not require by law, many plants lawyers were all too happy to go along because court order secrecy to provide a pecuniary sweetness, so to speak, in subtle and time. this means that secrecy, court ordered secrecy, government and forced secrecy, is a commodity that has a market value but is being bought and paid for, not just ride beneath the judge's nose, but with the judge's complicity in my view, civil cases do not operate in a system where the judge's signature is for sale.

what the parties gain by an order that could not be accomplished by mutual agreement between the parties? the first thing that comes to mind is the contempt power is brought to bear on anyone who violates the court order. fair enough. other literature at cigna -- suggests other less pure motives may be a place. there are certain air reporting requirements imposing obligations on businesses to self-report events causing injury. these go to, for example, the consumer product safety commission or the japan -- joint commission's n.y. on safety. one reporter suggested that under reporting to those agencies is rampant and that some of the time, not all of the time, companies are hiding behind the judge's signature and failing to disclose this information by hiding behind a gag order they invited the judge to sign.

those who wrote in to oppose our role in south carolina suggested three principal arguments. litigants should not share their privacy -- shed their rights to the courthouse door and they should agree between themselves to keep things confidential. this argument misses the mark because our ruling had nothing to do with bilateral agreements on confidentiality, rather it dealt with court orders requiring the parties to maintain confidentiality. the second argument is advanced by over 90% of the people who responded to oppose the changes suggested that in our district settlements would vanish and every case on the docket would go to trial. in one attorney wagged his finger at me and said, "he will try hundreds and hundreds of cases in the next couple of years." the argument supper's that if lawyers uphold klaipeda it did

not have the option that they would respond by airing their dispute in the most public of all forms, a trouble for jury in a public courtroom. well, we now have 10 years of experience under the new rule, and guess what? our entire court collectively have not tried hundreds and hundreds of cases, rather civil trials have continued to spiral downward. i will not bore you with statistics, but suffice it to say we have tried our cure cases in the tenures as since the rule was passed and we did in the 10 years preceding the adoption. the final argument advanced was an economic ruling. it was said that the business community would avoid south carolina and the sunshine role went on the books. how did that prediction play out? business development has gone up in south carolina each of the last five years. if you do not believe me, a

drive by the new boeing plant nearing completion at the airport the next time you are in charleston harbor by the new amazon and distribution disability in colombia that has broken ground several weeks ago were brought by the bmw plant a recently announced a new production line of an additional 260,000 cars per year. in short, none of the dire predictions of the ruling came true. in south carolina, life goes on. and in the colonel sanders secret recipe containing 11 herbs and spices is still safe and go public safety is promoted, and i think can help the public has a little bit more confidence in what we do i have been called upon to two occasions to testify before congress in connection with the proposed federal sunshine and litigation which would go far beyond what we did in south carolina particularly in relation to confidentiality

orders on discovery. i have heard a dramatic testimony of john a. bradley and others who have experienced tragedy to urged congress to intervene. my sense is that in the court system, if we do not take steps to keep our house in order, we will wake up one day with more draconian laws on the books and. i am cautiously optimistic that we've passed the point on a court secrecy. a few jurisdictions, but what we did in south carolina. this at least made judges more mindful of what will come in a clay when we signed confidentiality orders without good reason. one judge interviewed was quoted as saying, "in years past she would sign an order saying the moon was made out of cheese if it was consented to an necessary to settle a case in. and now she has changed to remind. on the national level, the

judicial summit came out with a very fine book in 2010, "perhaps sealing court records, it pocket guide." knows each trigger the lawyers would be complete without out a legal citation. -- and no speech to lawyers. "the formative document for the state of new jersey provided, in part, in all public courts of justice for trials and causes, any person may freely come into and attend the said courts is that justice may not be done in a secret corner more in a covert manner. old law is good law. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you, judge anderson. our final finalist comes to us from the university of maryland school long -- school of law. professor frequently appears on television and radio to discuss the court system and pertinent legal issues. please welcome professor sherrilyn ifill. [applause] >> i want to thank judge kane. i do not want to thank him for being last. let me see what i can contribute to this subject before we have our discussion. i should say at the outset that

i take very seriously the name of this panel because it is my sincere hope that all of you would be willing to be really and truly open to exploring what may be some uncomfortable realities about transparency in our federal courts, some of which we have already heard, in the hope that we can to get your imagine some ways to promote greater openness, acceptance, and depreciation on judging on the federal bench. it seems to me there are two potential audiences that issue when we talk about whether courts can be more open and understood. we have to determine who we are talking to. i'm sure we will spend a great deal of time talking about how the media understands what judges do when we have our discussion as well as the substance of cases decided by federal judges, but i would like to begin by suggesting that we begin with exploring whether or not courts can be more open towards and better understood

within the profession. those of us who are lawyers and practice, those who are the first and most knowledgeable ambassadors about our court system. judge king alluded to this when he talked about recusant practices in his opening remarks and. others have spoke about this as well. recusal is one important points of discussion in litigation in. it is fairly easy to deal with irrecusable in the process of actual bias or interest, where the judge has a financial interest in a case or holds stock in one of the related parties. the greatest difficulty stems from accusal when a judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned, or what i call the appearance of alliance standard. as justice o'connor discussed in the famous redistricting case, appearances do matter. the statute governing the

appearance of bias standard makes clear that a judge should withdraw when her impartiality might reasonably be questioned. the statute does not indicate that judges should wait for a motion filed by a party. instead the judge herself should be prepared to disqualify herself a reasonable person and all the facts and circumstances would believe that the judge may not be able to impartially decide a case. of course, the stakes are higher when a party has decided to s eek a recusal. they must sit in the shoes a reasonable person. although i hesitate to say this, it is important to remember that federal judges are not reasonable persons. by that, i do not mean that you are irrational. i only mean that what appears to a federal appellate judge has the appearance of bias often differs greatly than how it might appear to reasonable person or unreasonable lawyer.

the moment when a judge declines to recuse herself as one that generates tremendous anxiety and concern for litigants and lawyers alike. we could spend some time during our discussion talking about what should happen when a judge denies the motion to recuse. should the federal courts have refusal panels made up of retired judges and academics specializing in judicial ethics it might make refusal recommendations in cases that can be a farm or adopted by the court -- affirmed or adopted. this exists within the framework of the judicial opinion. this has been spoken about unpublished opinions, and i am sure we will speak about some more. the judicial opinion provide the critical space to explain contentious issues trouville their reasoning, explore alternative arguments, and even speak directly to the parties to the legislature, or even to other courts.

the judicial opinion, in my view, is becoming an endangered species. four out of by judicial decisions are made without an opinion and the figures are higher in some courts, including this circuit as judge keenan explained earlier. this is an enormous blow to transparency. and as the possibility of threatening the integrity of our judiciary in the eyes of the public. i'm like to talk about the lack of published opinion a little bit to explore what some of the reasons are and how we might address this. you simply could not write opinions from the cases that come before the fourth circuit. that would be true of any federal circuit. there is an imbalance between the docket of federal judges and the number of justices in our courts. the reason for this imbalance is somewhat complicated.

one reason is that congress has made a set of political decisions that has put unbearable tension on the judicial system. beginning in the 1980's during the "war on drugs" congress began to federalize crime that had heretofore fallen within state law. there has been little discussion between the enactment of new federal crime and federal courts. for those criminal cases, the constitutional requirements that defendants receive a speedy trial for the transparency of our courts. we have been reluctant to significantly increase the number of federal judges in each circuit.

they have discouraged from adding new judges to the judiciary itself, but starving the judiciary has become something of a badge of honor for successful converses. no one wishes to increase the judiciary when the opposing party controls congress. and we have something of a stalemate. the insufficient number of judges has compelled the judiciary to expand practices that are raised questions, the additional attorneys to handle habeas courses is a longstanding practice. of course, i'm not referring to standard chamber clerks who work for one or two years providing

invaluable assistance in researching and drafting opinions. i think of the clerks to work for the judiciary rather than individual judges and their responsibilities to may screen for screening cases to drafting recommendations and even opinions that, in many instances, are routinely adopted by judges. i have been working on a study on the use of central staff attorneys in the judiciary. if you received a questionnaire for me, i hope you will respond. i do not want to impugn their work. they serve a critically important role in managing cases. their work has become a valuable to the efficient running of our courts. my point is the increased use of central staff attorneys was necessitated by the failure of congress to allocate judges who to help in the area of criminal justice in. the consequence is a decision making structure that exists largely outside the understanding of lawyers and

litigants to use the federal systems. the importance of the judicial opinion to how the public understands the work of judges was on a rare display two breaks ago. i want to give this example even though it arises from the state courts, because it is responsive to the point that jeffrey toobin , made earlier. it is my view that the opinion is the principal and most important means by which the court cannot transmit understanding of the public of what they do. in iran opinion by a baltimore city trial judge two weeks ago, -- in a rare opinion, this was about the killing of a patron who had groped the officers and girlfriend of said the club in baltimore. criminal cases involving the police as defendants are also very public and volatile. the judge wrote and issued an opinion accompanying his decision to convict the officer

of manslaughter in do have the opinion was no example of high artistic prose, but explained in very clear language the judges thought process in concluding that the officer had not committed first-degree murder but had not acted in self- defense in killing the man outside the nightclub. it was hailed by many members of the community for its clarity about the judge relaid the evidence, what he saw when he revisited the scene of the crime, why he found someone is as credible, and others not. the i believe the release of that opinion that the verdict was received without the usual the three all and end of the police case is usually get. i want -- without the usual vitriol. i want to make an argument in favor of multiple opinions, in concurrence and dissent. while i support unanimous opinions, particularly in cases

in which the court raised -- weighs in on cases like brown vs. board of the education, or the nixon watergate tapes. i often thought the bush v. gore decision was the inability to be coherent around one opinion. it is also true that they serve the important function of demonstrating the courts engagement with multiple perspectives and approaches. they provide opportunities to demonstrate to the public the judicial decision that is not inevitable, but the result of a process that has left me and certain that a strongly worded opinion would suffice. judge ok'ing issued a concurrence in the case i lost in the fourth circuit. it was black residents of a

community in salisbury, md., in deciding the route 50 bypassed leading out to the ocean city beach in maryland. there were prepared to demonstrate that the decision to construct a bypass at the denver post location constituted the third time in 60 years that the state had chosen to route a highway directly through or adjacent to this community. we lost on statute of limitation grounds, but judge king roddick concurrence. "i write this to express my views about the shabby treatment by the state of maryland to the residence." we lost the case, but i cannot convince some of them that we had not won. for them, the concurrence was evidence that they had been heard. even if their claim could not have gone forward, they had their day in court even dissidents can play a valuable role in helping people explain

the role of our courts. i hope in the debate we have the opportunity to discuss many the others important cases, and i thank you for having me. [applause] >> thank you, professor. we do not have as much time left as i would hope for the follow- up discussion. i will turn immediately to the cameras in the courtroom. it seems to me mr. toobin is probably more interested in getting cameras in the courtroom, or the appellate court room. i would like to hear what judge anderson, but the most experienced trial judges in the circus, thinks about bringing cameras into the trial court >>

i think we will see it in our lifetime. we can deal with it. trial judges need to be given tools to handle the situation and vote. the news media say that camera stock report what is happening and they did not reflect behavior. you need only turn on camera and a saturday afternoon and you see normally sane individuals acting like they are from mars. exhibit b would be the o.j. case. there was the william kennedy smith trial in florida accused of date rape and accused -- and acquitted. it public, i think, on would have bought a rich, wealthy family beat the system. they could see the weakness in the prosecution case and had more confidence in the verdict. trial judges do need to be given discretion. it requires the consent of the

parties to. the judge needs to have a kill switch. i think it will work and we can make it work. >> what kind of safeguards would you impose on protecting witnesses in managing the use of cameras in the courtroom? allows -- >> board oflorida autographing jurors. i am in favor of flat roles rather than giving judges or

parties veto power over the decision to televise. that is not how we operate in this country by and large. we have rules that apply to everyone, and i think we should not have a system where the parties can veto. i also think the public scrutiny issue is an important one. it is a very controversial decision, i believe that in the of0's, when both houses congress decided the televised proceedings. people said it would change things, and perhaps it did. imagine today at the house of representatives or the senate said that they would not televised proceedings anymore. they think it would be better to be done in private. there would be a rebellion.

that is a part of our government that is available for them to see, for better or worse. once we establish a regime where the expectation is that trials are public, and again just to get to the point raised earlier, just as the commercial opinion, and i am not management but so- called talent, but i think management really wants to cover trials rather than appellate arguments. there would be very limited audiences for the coverage of the appellate arguments on a regular basis. macbook -- once we establish a role where something is available to the public. the public, quite appropriately, gets very irritated when that is taken away from them. that would be trooper congress.

it will eventually be true for the courts once we get a more regular and widespread access. >> thank you. judge keenan, you mentioned that cameras complicate things in the trial courts. use the cameras as more of a problem in the trial courts than the appellate courts. >> yes, i do. it has been a long time since i was a trial judge, but i was 1 for five years. in the context of a jury trial, it can pose problems, not just whether the jurors can be seen on camera but what happens then in the very frequent instance that the jury needs to be excused for argument by counsel. would those be broadcast? what about motions for mistrial when the jury is not sequestered? would those be broadcast and the

jury allowed to go home? there are a lot of complications and the instantaneous problems that occur in the dynamics of a trial, the judges need for quick, corrective action. it seems to me that it poses very, very strong problems that are not present at all in the appellate context. again, i defer to judge anderson on this because his experience as current and mine is not. i do have some great reservations to that that i do not have for the appellate courts. >> mr. jarrett, you and the government has some experience in this. what are the minimum safeguards that should be imposed york right to televise? >> let me begin by talking about concerns. i have substantial concerns, especially in criminal trials. there are concerns about the truth finding function of the

process can and secondly concerned about asecurity. there are different but related. i have concerns about the fact cameras in the courtroom can have on, perhaps, the performance or behavior of some trial lawyers. perhaps the performance of witnesses who are not at all happy about being there, particularly in a criminal case where they may be testifying about behavior they are ashamed of it. i also of concerns about security, the testimony of undercover police officers, court personnel, and the world in which we work where there are a lot of people with strong feelings and there is a pretty good access to guns. i worry about having our judges being publicly known and visible. >> could i raise an issue about security?

i certainly take those issues seriously, and they do not have a comprehensive proposal, but i think there is another side to the pit -- to the security issue which relates to public intelligence. in 1993, there was the bombing of the world trade center which had a much smaller loss of life but was a very serious events in n.y. and it led to the arrest of the so-called blind sheik. there were a couple of very major federal criminal prosecutions that came out of that in the southern district of new york in the 1990's. those were not televised they were not widely followed. they were just some newspaper stories. many of my journalist colleagues who have studied